


We Are All Scarred

by Natteravn



Category: Game of Thrones RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - School, Bullying, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natteravn/pseuds/Natteravn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU set in September 2003. Kit is being beaten up at school. The whole case is giving school nurse Lena Headey grey hair, and it doesn't help that the person behind the beatings manages to slip away every time she gets close. The new boy Richard wants to help, but he's got his own reasons for wanting to stay out of trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was born almost a year ago, and was pretty much written in a couple of days. Throughout this year I've occasionally gone back to it to fix bits and pieces, and added scenes that were missing. I've finally arrived at the point where I'm satisfied with it. It's not perfect; it's definitely got its fault and defects, but it's still a baby of mine and I'm very excited to share it. Please note that I'm not a medical expert, and that the medical aspects of the story is based on experience and imagination. Same goes for school - it's there to fill in gaps, and I've chosen not to pay too much attention to it as I'm not updated to detail on how the British education system works. I originally wanted to write a sequel and post them together, but I've put that idea on hold for now. Maybe a sequel will appear in the future, maybe it'll just stay in my head and never see the light of day.
> 
> A fanmix for the fic can be found [here](http://8tracks.com/schattenmacht/we-are-all-scarred) at 8tracks.
> 
> \---
> 
> **Disclaimer:** Nothing written in my fanfictions is real – I have made absolutely everything up. These persons belong exclusively to themselves, and when I write about them, I see them as _characters based on the real persons_ , not the actual alive and breathing people. I make no profit from my writing, and I do not mean to offend or harass anyone with my works.

The first kick hadn’t been too bad, the second punch hadn’t hit the target the puncher aimed for, but that was hours ago. At least it felt like hours. Guys shouted, whistled and yelled enthusiastic encouragements to the bullies. Some girl voices joined in among them, but just as many girls let out whimpers and cries when the punches became too hard, or the kicks hit a soft, tender area.

“Go on, give him in properly!” a voice shouted, and he recognised it as one of the tall, strong bodybuilder types, the ones who were a year older. He swore that the older boy hadn’t hit him - a punch from a guy like that, and he wouldn’t have breath left in his body - but that was long ago. From the moment they had gotten him down on the ground, he couldn’t tell which punch or kick was whose.

His lip stung and his mouth tasted of blood, the warm liquid filling his mouth with the sweet, sickening taste, almost making him gag. His throat had closed up, and the punches directed at his lungs had made it hard to breathe. The back of his head hurt where they had knocked him several times against the ground. He couldn’t open his eyes to see, but he knew that his hands and arms were covered in cuts and bruises. The way his t-shirt stuck to his skin told him that more than one of the cuts were bleeding. Both the back and the front of his thighs had recieved kicks from the very beginning. Come the morning, he would be all black and blue.

“You’re all such pussies!”

“Yeah, you’re hitting him like a bunch of girls who’re afraid of getting their skirts dirty!”

Protests from female voices followed, and all the guys laughed. The bullies immediately picked up their effort, hitting even harder and kicking even more precicely. He cried out as something in his left shoulder snapped, and laughs spread around the hovering group. Someone cheered and he felt another one join in.

“That’s the way to do it!” A female voice yelled. The voice startled him so that he managed to look up. Boys laughed and shouted at her enthusiasm, and he could see that they pushed her closer toward him. A kick hit his stomach and he gasped for air. His reflexes huddled him into foetal position, and he closed his arms even tighter around himself to protect his head. The female voice came closer.

“These boys are too weak to do it, but I’m not,” she said, and he could hear the smirk in her voice, echoing in his ears. The boys had stopped for some reason, and he dared uncurl somewhat and look up from under his arms. The girl had lowered herself down, elbows resting on her knees. The image of her swam in front of his eyes, but her hair was fair and her singlet looked really tight, even for someone as skinny as her. He recognised her vagually - she had hovered over him before, stared him down, mocked him, spat after him. Somewhere in the back of his brain he tried to think of a reason she’d be after him.

She looked at him, but the expression was hard to read. There was a smirk there, but it wasn’t really a smirk either. It was amused and mischievous, but malicious at the same time, almost evil, and the look in her eyes didn’t match the smirk at all. For a long while she just sat like that, crouched down, staring at him, deciding her next move.

The moment he least expected it, she suddenly snapped. In less than a second she had rosen and striked. He was vagually aware of the school bell ringing as her foot placed a well-blown kick to the most tender area of them all.

The world around him went black.

When he woke up, he had lost track of date and time. He looked around himself slowly: no one was out, but the sun and the shadows hadn’t changed their positions so much that the day could be over. He couldn’t have been out more than a couple of minutes, he realised, judging by the way the taste of blood still felt fresh in his mouth.

His whole body ached: he could basically feel the blood pounding beneath the bruises they had left him with. His t-shirt was clammy and sticky, and the locks covering his forehead were wet. Whether it was blood or sweat, he could not be sure. He tried to move his left arm - remembering just too late that it had snapped somewhere along the ride - and cried out.

His shoulder stung worse than any of the bruises they had given him, and he could barely move his arm. His collar bone had to be broken. That was the only possible explanation. It snapped easily, being one of the most fragile bones in the human body, and the kids weren’t so strong that they could break another bone - were they?

He had to go see the school nurse. If his collar bone really was broken, he would have to go to hospital for a check-up, but at least she could clean and patch up his deepest cuts and give him something for the pain. Maybe she could even call his parents for him. He had no intentions of going back to the classroom. Not like this.

As carefully as he could manage, he put his weight on the right arm and pushed himself up.

And fell right back on the ground as he recalled the smirking girl and her strength. His shoulder protested as every instinct in his body told him to grab his crotch. He was unable to control the tears running down his cheeks, and not did he want to, either. For a moment he lay like that, trying to fight the pain and doing his best to control his breathing. In and out, in and out, deeper, slower. His lungs still stung, but much less than they had while the boys had kept him down.

Somehow he managed to gain some control and tried to push himself up again. His groin throbbed and protested and he almost gave into the urge of falling back on the ground, but he couldn’t. He had to get up, and get the nurse to look at his wounds.

Getting up turned out to be a lot harder than he had imagined. His right knee had to be wounded too, because he could barely put his weight on his right leg. He favoured his left leg as he got into vertical position, and managed to walk a couple of meters. The pain was excruciating, paralyzing his body as he clutched the backrest of a bench to hold himself up. Tears stung in his eyes again, and a wave of nausea flushed over him. He swallowed, breathed, swallowed and breathed to resist the urge to bend over and vomit.

The nausea was over as quickly as it came, and he could breathe normally again. Knowing that he had to take it easy if he didn’t want it to come back, he started to walk, ever so slowly. There were seven feet or so between each bench, and he paused by each one to steady himself and relax until some of the pain went away before he continued.

By the third bench he looked up to see how far he had left. The school nurse’s office seemed kilometers away. He took a deep breath, steadied his breathing and reminded himself that he had to stay positive. He was never going to make it if not.


	2. Chapter 2

Nurse Lena Headey was that sort of gorgeous woman who every girl at the school feared to compete against, and every boy, to some degree or another, wanted to fuck. No kid felt confident when they entered her office. She had a strong and proud personality, and sharp eyes that could make even the bullies wet themselves. Her silky dark hair reached down to her shoulders, soft and shiny. She had perfectly manicured fingernails and blood red lips, and the right amount of black make-up always framed her sharp eyes.

In all honesty, she loved her job. She loved helping the kids, patching them up when they had scraped up their knees, talking to them about their personal problems involving everything from homework and stress to love and too strict parents. She knew very well that they somewhat feared her, but she also knew that it was the _idea_ of her that frightened them, not her personally.

The injuries she had seen had been everything from a small papercut on an eleven-year-old girl’s delicate finger, to several broken ribs, feet pierced right through by broken glass and punctured lungs. After five years in the same job she was used to most cases, and nothing took her by surprise anymore. That didn’t mean that she loved her job any less - she knew that every time a kid left her office, she had meant something in the little one’s life, whether it was just soft words of comfort or a careful blow and a colourful patch to fix a cut.

But that warm Thursday afternoon in mid September when the sixteen-year-old Kit Harington stepped into her office, she had to cover her mouth in order not to cry out. He had been at her office before, small cuts or a black eye, but it had never been anything like that day. The boy literally looked like something brought back from the dead.

His thick, black curls were wet and bloody, clinging to his forehead. Fresh tears and semi-dried blood covered his cheeks, nose and mouth. His white t-shirt was covered in dirt, and a countless of places the blood had started to seep through the soft material. His arms were covered in cuts and bruises, some of them had already started to swell. He was favouring his left leg, and though she couldn’t see the injury to his right, she knew that it was most definitely there.

His breath was ragged and short when he managed to rasp out that he needed help, and it was obvious that he winced when he heard the high pinch in his own voice. It was then she noticed that he used his right arm to support himself against the door, his left hand was clutching his groin. His eyes were red and stained with tears, and shame and pain coloured the look in them.

Tears stung in her eyes as she dropped the papers she was trying to sort out and hurried over to grab him around his waist. He winced as she put her arms around him - his t-shirt clearly hid a lot of injuries she didn’t even want to think of - but he let her lead him into her office and place him on her bench. He whimpered as he sat down, and she looked at him with a sympathetic look of comprehension and compassion.

She poured him a cup of ice cold water, before she as fast and effectively as she could manage without seeming unprofessional, fetched clean cloths, desinfectant facilities, bandages, patches, cotton and pain killers. She placed it all on the bench beside the boy, and sat down in front of him. He was drinking the water in small amounts, wincing when he swallowed. They must’ve hurt his lungs too, she thought, recalling the way his voice had rasped.

With a delicate hand she touched his dark locks and pushed them out of the way. She wet one of the cloths, wrung it up and placed it carefully against his forehead.

“Who did this to you?” she whispered, trying to meet his eyes. He wouldn’t meet hers.

“No one,” he replied. The lie couldn’t have been clearer.

“This is not the work of ‘no one’,” she said softly.

“I balanced on that fence behind the school, fell with one leg on each side, and tumbled down the hill. It’s full of rocks and sharp edges.”

That was true. A lot of kids had balanced on that fence, and more than once she had sent them to hospital with broken legs and concussions, but she also knew that it never turned out as bad as this. It was also forbidden to balance on it - something which only encouraged the kids to do it - but she knew Kit. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t rebellious in any way, he would never have balanced on a fence when he knew he wasn’t allowed to.

“You know as well as I do that this isn’t the work of a fence and some rocks,” she replied, not unkindly. He kept his mouth shut and whimpered as a she reached his nose. Blood covered it from the nostrils and down to his mouth. It wasn’t broken, but it had clearly gotten a punch or two. She cleaned his face quietly, giving his mouth a quick check as well, but all his teeth seemed to be in place.

When she was done, she motioned toward his t-shirt.

“We have to take this off you,” she said.

He nodded, but he had only gotten to the hem of it when he whimpered and stopped. His eyes were begging her.

“I can’t,” he whispered, and his voice almost broke. “I- I think my collar bone is broken.”

She met his eyes and bit her perfectly redcoloured lips in order not to whimper herself. The other kids had really given him everything they had. She turned around, found her scissor and started cutting the t-shirt instead.

“I hope you don’t mind that I’m ruining it,” she said carefully. He shook his head.

As she ripped off the remains of the dirty clothing, she wondered how someone so strong could be beaten so badly. He was only sixteen, seventeen in a couple of months, yet his shoulders were already broad for his age, and both his arms and chest hid well defined muscles. They must have been many, considering the way he looked underneath the shirt. Cuts and scratches covered him from his shoulder to the waistband of his jeans, and the bruises had already started to swell.

She reached for his left shoulder, pressing ever so carefully against his collar bone. His body shook beneath her hands and by the way his face twisted, she could tell that he was biting down a cry. Whether it was broken or not was difficult to say - she didn’t want to press him further - but it was definitely damaged somehow. It wasn’t up to her anyway, they could check that properly at the hospital.

She let it be and found a new cloth, wet it and pressed it against his chest. He hissed sharply, but didn’t flinch. He was hot, almost feverish, so the wet, cold cloth must feel like ice on fire against his body. She washed him off carefully, not wanting to make things worse than they already were. He sat still, waiting patiently for her to finish. Occasionally he let out a hiss or a wince, and she would apologise and steady her motions.

He had to stand up as she took his back, but to her slight surprise and utter happiness, his back wasn’t as bad as his chest. He would probably be black and blue the next morning, but the amount of cuts that need rinsing was less than she had expected.

When she was done, she reached for the bandage to wrap his shoulder up in. It probably wasn’t necessary for the injury’s sake, but it would make it easier for him. And right now, all she wanted to was to make him feel better, even if the only thing she did was planting an idea in his head that a bandage could fix up a broken collar bone. What he needed was to be taken care of, and what she couldn’t fix, she could at least help.

When she covered small bits of cotton with the desinfectant facility to clean his cuts, she spoke to him again.

“Was it a girl who kicked you?” she asked, gently. He glared at her then, his brows furrowing as his mouth curved slightly downward. She looked at him, knowingly, until his features softened and he glanced down, nodding. If there was one thing life had taught her about boys, it was that being kicked by a girl below the belt was one of the things that hurt their pride the most.

“You wanna know how I can tell?”

“Not really.”

She smiled at him, and told him anyway.

“Boys will kick, hit and punch like their life depended on it, but they usually won’t kick each other below the belt. They know how much it hurts, and that it’s basically cheating. Boys can fight dirty, but not _that_ dirty. Girls aren’t like that. Any opportunity to humiliate a guy and they’ll take it.”

She paused for a second, not sure if she should continue or not, but the boy was obviously waiting for her to continue, so she did.

“Girls rarely fight physically, but they’re champions at fighting verbally, where they’re every sense and sort of dirty. It’s the only thing they know, and every girl is a master of it. So on the rare occasions when they actually _do_ fight physically, they will use their secret weapon for what it’s worth.”

She smiled at him, carefully, and for a millisecond his mouth tilted upward.

“Will I be alright?” he asked, and bit his lip again. Clearly it was something he had been wanting to ask, but not dared to. She didn’t blame him.

“Most likely, yes, you don’t have to worry,” she replied. “You’ll feel it for the rest of the day, and probably tomorrow as well, but over the weekend the pain will fade away. If it’s been a week and things still don’t feel close to normal, I suggest you go see the doctor.”

He nodded at that, once again unable to meet her eyes.

“He can help you better than I can,” she said, and winked at him. He blushed violently at that and shook his head, taking a mental step back and flinching away when she went for a nasty cut just below his nipple.

“I didn’t-” he stuttered.

“I’m only joking,” she said, smiling at him. “Now hold still, or I’ll never get my job done.”

He leant forward again and did as he was told. He was still in a great deal of pain, but his mood had lightened, and only that could work wonders for a wounded body - both physically and mentally. She patched the nastiest cuts, but most of them were so small that they would heal better on their own. When she was done with his chest, he stood up on his own accord and turned around. She rinsed the few cuts that needed it, but none of them were bad enough to be patched up.

“I have to take a look at your legs as well, so you have to pull your trousers down,” she said when she was done with his upper body. He didn’t like the sound of that, she could tell by the way his shoulders tensed, but he did as he was told. Blood covered the side of his right thigh, and for a second she was scared that the girl had hit him better than she probably had intended to, but when she got closer she realised that the blood came from a rather deep cut in his thigh.

“The doctor will have to sew that wound,” she said, nodding. He looked down and winced. “I’ll rinse it and put a bandage on so an infection won’t set, but you better get it looked at today.”

He nodded. She bent down and ran her hands over his right knee. She put up a stern face and rose. 

“I also believe that they will have to take an x-ray of that, as well as your collar bone,” she said as she found another, bigger piece of cotton and covered it in the desinfectant facility. He looked away as she worked the cut in his thigh as quick as she could. When the bandage was on, she poured him a new cup of ice cold water and handed him a couple of paracets and an ibux. He took them and gulped the water down.

“Why didn’t you give them to me earlier?” he asked when he had swallowed them all.

“I needed you to feel the pain when I checked your shoulder and your knee. If you had been drugged on pain killers, and I had pressed or twisted, you wouldn’t be able to tell me that it hurt before I had pressed too hard or twisted too far the wrong way.”

“Oh. ‘Course.” He paused and bit his lip, before opening his mouth again. “Can I-?” he started, leaving the actual question in the air as he nodded toward his trousers. She smiled at him and nodded, and opened one of her cabinets to pull out a new, clean t-shirt for him. She always kept some spare t-shirts, she never knew when she had to cut the kids out of theirs.

“You got anyone you want me to call?” she asked when he was done.

“Yeah, my mum, I think- I believe she should be home by now.”

He gave her the number, and after a quick call and some harsh words to calm Mrs Harington down, she hung up.

“She’ll be here in ten minutes. And I want you to know that I’m not letting you go to school tomorrow. Take Friday off, have a long weekend, and be back healed and healthy on Monday, alright?”

He nodded at that, a genuine smile spreading over his lips. The split in the lower cracked, but he didn’t seem to notice it.

“I guess your stuff is in the classroom, you want me to fetch them for you?”

He looked at her with an expression of disbelief and affection. “Can you do that?”

“Absolutely. It’s for the best, anyway. You’re limping and you’ve just taken pain killers, and I don’t want to let you anywhere near those kids right now. They don’t need to satisfaction of seeing you like this.”

“How do you-”

“I know. I’m the school nurse, remember? It’s my job. I just wish I had done something sooner, before it got this bad.”

With that, she left the room and headed down the hallway to Kit’s classroom. She meant what she had just said. She had noticed the small injuries he had turned up with, small things, only once in a while since the school started a month ago, and not actually something to get suspicious of. That was probably what the kids that though, too. She knew now how wrong she had been when she had gone home, told herself that it was nothing, that she didn’t need to worry, it was stupid of her, she cared too much for the boy to be normal. She should have done something the first time she’d felt that uneasy, sickening thought in her stomach. She should have talked to him, hugged him, done anything, and maybe then this wouldn’t have happened. It was her job. She better start doing it properly.

Kit’s class only had a couple of minutes left of the lesson. If she was lucky, she caught them in a double. She hoped they had double maths. They deserved it. She straightened herself up, shook her head quickly and gave the door a sharp knock. A muted “come in” came from the other side of the door, and she entered with confident steps and an unimpressed expression written over her pretty face.

The room went dead silent as she cleared her throat sharply and stomped with her shoe, once, hard.

“I’m here to pick up your fellow classmate Kit Harington’s bag. Can anyone tell me where his desk is?”

The room was silent for almost a minute before a small girl raised her hand. She had long brown hair, dark-framed glasses, little make-up or maybe none at all, and clothes that clearly did little to show off the obviously beautiful curves she hid underneath.

“Over here,” she said quietly, but the room was so quiet that Lena could hear her without even straining herself. She walked over, hovering over the kids, and picked up the bag. Kit’s English textbooks lay on his desk after an earlier lesson. She grabbed them to put them in the bag, but the girl stopped her.

“He won’t need those. We don’t have any homework in English.” She paused, but there was clearly something more coming. The girl looked around herself before she continued. “He’s got his key to his locker in the small pocket at the front of the bag. He’ll need his History books.”

“And for Monday?” Lena asked, not forgetting that she had given the poor kid Friday off.

“Then he’ll probably need Religion as well. I’m not quite certain, but better be safe than sorry, right?”

Lena gave the girl a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.” Then she stood up straight, flung the bag over her shoulder and took the English books under her arm instead. When she reached the front of the classroom she stopped, looked at every single one of them and said sharply:

“I don’t know which of you who did this, but I swear, if I ever catch you doing it again, or Harington turns up on the doorstep of my office with even as much as a broken _fingernail_ , I will hunt you down and make you pay for it. Is that understood?”

No one moved. No one spoke.

“ _Is that understood?_ ” she repeated, angry now.

Every single head bobbed up and down and mumbles of “yes, miss Headey” filled the classroom.

“Good. And for you, Mrs Fairley,” she turned toward the teacher, “I’m giving Harington the day off tomorrow, due to medical reasons. You are not to give him any remarks. Have I made myself clear?”

Mrs Fairley nodded. “Absolutely, miss Headey.”

As Lena turned to open the door, a sharp voice called out. She turned around, meeting a young girl’s eyes. She was blonde, with dark eyes and dark make-up and lips painted in an even darker red than the one colouring her own lips. The girl rose and followed her out the door, ignoring Mrs Fairley’s call of _Carmen, get back here immediately_ , and closing the door behind her. Lena watched as she leant against the shut door and picked at a necklace hanging around her neck. The chain was silver, and the amulet had a star with five tags - a pentagram. When she looked up, the look in her eyes couldn’t be described as anything else than challenging. She crossed her arms over her chest, her B-cup breats pressing against her too small singlet.

“That fucking fag fucking deserved it,” she hissed, her voice poisionous. “I hope I kicked him so fucking hard that I castrated him in the process. That should teach him a lesson.”

Then she smirked. Lena couldn’t do anything but stare in disbelief and abhorrence at the girl. She wanted to say something, she wanted to yell, scream, hit, but she didn’t. Instead she gave the girl the coldest glare she could muster, turned around on her heal and walked away. She wasn’t going to give the girl the satisfaction of seeing miss Lena Headey sink down to her level.

\---:---

Back from the hospital - at _last_ \- Kit was exhausted and beyond grateful to be home again. His knee had somehow been dislocated, but all it took was a couple of painful minutes and he was fine again. The doctor still told him that he had to be careful the next days, because it would still be weak. Seeing as miss Headey had given him Friday off, that wasn’t going to be a problem.

The left collar bone hadn’t been just as lucky. As his first thought had been, it was broken, but it wasn’t too serious. They had removed the bandage miss Headey had put on, and he had protested then, but the doctor had told him that the best way to treat it was to leave it alone for a while, then slowly trying to use it the best he could. He must not wait too long before he started working it back into normal, that could weaken it and it may never heal.

His head had spun at that, but his mother told him afterward that basically, he could do anything, as long as it didn’t hurt. And after a while, a week or two, tops, he had to start trying to move his arm in circles, so that he slowly could work its way back into what it used to be.

His mother hadn’t said anything during the visit at the hospital or the drive home. When he had slowly climbed the stairs up to his room she had glanced a long look after him, and he was certain that she wanted to say something, but she hadn’t. He was glad she hadn’t. He didn’t want to talk about it, he just wanted to be left alone and deal with it in his own way. You didn’t talk to your parents about being bullied when you didn’t want to tell them _why_ the kids bullied you.

He lowered himself carefully on the bed and sighed. His knee felt better, but he still didn’t feel confident about putting too much pressure on it. The wound on the inside of his thigh still throbbed after the sewing. He’d been given local anesthesia and hadn’t felt anything, but now that it started to fade away, it felt different. He had gotten some extra pain killers at the hospital so it didn’t exactly hurt, he wasn’t in pain, he just _felt_ his thigh and noticed that it was there in another way than usual. Antibiotics had been prescribed for two weeks, and he was to take them every day.

The wounded collar bone hurt when he moved his arm or made too swift motions, but other than that it wasn’t too bad. As long as he kept it still the first week and started thinking about getting it back on track the next, it would be fine.

What hurt the most was still his groin. The worst and most intense pain had faded away while he’d been at miss Headey’s office, but he still _felt_ it, just like he _felt_ his thigh, only that this was worse. He wasn’t in exact pain, at least not when he was lying flat on the bed, but it didn’t feel good to walk. He hadn’t wanted the doctor to check it out though (oh, that embarrassment would hurt more than any injury), but the nurse had told him that it wasn’t required. If he’d been hurt critically, they’d known, she said. He had almost swallowed his tongue at that.

He stretched out on the bed, placed his hands under his head and stared at the roof. He felt tired and exhausted to the bone, but he didn’t really want to sleep either, knowing that he would be black and blue and beaten when he woke up. He reached for the remote control to his stereo, not remembering which CD he had put in last and not really caring, either. A soft voice sweeped out through the speakers. Kit closed his eyes.

Of course it had to be that one album that woke too many memories. Too many memories that he didn’t really want to recall.

He had never really thought much of his sexuality. He had first felt something for a guy at fifteen, then some guy called Jack had come along this summer, and now he wasn’t sure how he felt. He certainly didn’t feel different - he was the same person as he had always been, and he didn’t feel that something had changed in him. He wasn’t even sure if he was gay, straight or bisexual, and it didn’t matter either. He was sixteen - he had years to explore and figure out how it was all connected. He wasn’t in any rush.

Jack, yes. He recalled why he loved this album so much. It had been a gift from Jack, his first boyfriend. No, okay, that wasn’t exactly it. First, it hadn’t been a gift, it had just been given to him. It hadn’t been wrapped in some fancy, pink and white paper with a bow on and a sweet card with kisses and words of true love, he had just got it. A casual gesture, like it was nothing out of the ordinary. Jack had stuffed it in his hands and said that he should listen to it. When he had tried to give it back, Jack had shook his head and said no, he should keep it.

Second, ‘first’ didn’t fit when Jack was the only boyfriend he’d ever had, and ‘boyfriend’ wasn’t even the correct term. Fuck buddy would do if they actually had had sex, but they hadn’t, so that wasn’t it either. They were more like friends with benefits, except that they weren’t really friends, and what kind of benefits were there when the only thing they did was steal kisses and hold hands when no one saw them?

But there had been affection there, no doubt. He’d been in love in a stupid, idiotic and ignorant way, just like most people were when they were in their teens. Jack had been three years older, and funny, kind and lovely most of the time. Just when he was turned on, he could get pushy and aggressive, which was most of the reason why Kit had refused to sleep with him. It wasn’t that he was scared, or insecure or not ready or any of that stuff, he just didn’t want to sleep with someone who acted like a complete dickhead. That was also the reason why it had ended, whatever ‘it’ was.

Kit rolled over on his right side and pressed a hand to his lower stomach. He had two pretty nasty cuts there, one just under his navel and one closer to the hip. They had turned swollen and itchy already, and the doctor had had to take off miss Headey’s patches to check if they needed to be sewed, too. They didn’t, luckily, but neither the doctor nor the nurse doubted that both the cuts would leave scars. Kit wasn’t sure if he liked the sound of that. Everyone had cuts some place or another, but these were located at a tender area. It made him feel uneasy.

He found the one close to his hip and ran his fingers over it. The nurse hadn’t bothered to patch it back up, saying that it honestly wasn’t needed. She had wanted to remove all the other patches as well, but he had told her to leave them. He was glad he had - they made him feel that the cuts were healing, somewhere underneath them. He didn’t want miss Headey’s effort to be in vain either, not when she had been so kind and taken such good care of him. He had agreed though, to leave the two low located cuts without the patches because they were already removed. 

He was told that he shouldn’t touch the cuts - they needed peace and quiet to heal properly. Still he couldn’t help but running his fingers over the one at his hip, and the way it tickled made him feel warm and dizzy. The soft voice filling the room from the speakers only added to the effect, lulling him into sleep, relaxed and content on the bed.


	3. Chapter 3

“Please sit down and take your shirt off.”

Miss Headey looked up at Kit where he stood in the doorway and nodded toward the bench. She was sitting in front of her computer with a bunch of papers in one hand, and a binder in the other. Kit closed the door and did as he was told, looking at the school nurse as she finished up her paperwork. Just a few clicks on the computer and a quick flip through the papers, before she pulled her elegant, dark glasses off and moved her chair over to him.

“How are you feeling?” she asked as she started removing the patches covering his chest and checking the wounds underneath.

“Quite well, actually, considering,” he replied. He meant it. Friday morning he had been black and blue, just like he had expected, and he hadn’t felt like leaving the bed at all. His collar bone had hurt more than the day before, and the wound on his thigh had throbbed worse than ever. He’d taken a new round of pain killers, and been grateful for the day off. He had needed it. Saturday had been much of the same, but on Sunday he had been able to walk, talk and sit normally again. He had even figured out how to get dressed and undressed without putting too much pressure on the left arm and shoulder.

Monday he had been back to school, and remembered very well to thank Sally in the back of the classroom for the books. She had waved him off and said that it was the least she could do. She hadn’t known what had happened, but when the school nurse had come looking for his things, she didn’t even want to imagine. He had actually snickered at that.

No one had laid their hands on him that day, and not for the rest of the week either. Things were back to normal: complaining about homework and early mornings, waiting unpatiently for the weekend and two days off. Except that miss Headey had come over to him Thursday afternoon when school ended and told him that she wanted to see him in the lunch break the next day. He didn’t mind turning up, it felt good that someone cared.

“Good,” she replied, and motioned for him to get up so she could check his back. As he stood, her eyes caught the two cuts just above the waistband of his jeans.

“I patched these up,” she said, and reached out to touch the one in the middle. Kit hissed sharply as her cold hands touched his warm skin.

“The nurse at the hospital wanted to have a look at them, and stated that I would need to sew them, too. She didn’t bother patching them up again afterward. She said it wasn’t needed, they would heal better if she left them be.”

“And have they?”

Kit shrugged. He hadn’t payed much attention to that.

“One of the reasons why I patched up your nastiest cuts was because I wanted you to leave them alone. Wounds need to be left alone if they shall heal properly. You’ve been touching these. Even if they were sewed, they should’ve been covered, to protect them from you.”

Kit bit his lip guiltily and looked anywhere but her. “They itch and tickle,” he mumbled.

“Exactly,” miss Headey said with a knowing smile. “Now, turn around so I can take a look at your back.”

Just like the week before, she was done his back in no time compared to his chest. 

“I’ve removed the patches, and I don’t want you to touch the cuts no matter how much they may itch. If you do, you’ll end up having scars all over your body, and these are bad enough.”

“The doctor said they would leave scars anyway.”

“They will. So will the one on you chest, even if they didn’t find it necessary to sew it. And the one on the inside of your thigh, of course.”

“You’re not gonna check up on that one, too?”

“You want me to?”

He shook his head quickly.

“Then I won’t. There’s not much I can do, anyway. Leave the wound alone, just like the rest. You’ll have to go back to the hospital to remove the stings in about two weeks - that goes for the ones on your stomach, too - and until then you have to remember to change the bandages. You are changing them, aren’t you?” She gave him a supicious look.

He nodded. “Twice already. And they put me on antibiotics.”

“Good boy.”

She handed him his t-shirt back and watched as he pulled it over his head.

“Kit, I want to add-”

“Yeah?”

Her eyes were sad when she looked at him. “Do you want to tell me why they did this to you?”

He froze. He hated to talk about the bullying. Taking care of his abused body was one thing, talking about therefore’s and whyfore’s and reasons and feelings was something entirely different. He didn’t want to tell anyone anything. He had refused every question his parents had of the matter, why should he open up to some school nurse?

“No,” he replied, voice cold. “I have no idea why, I have no idea who it was and I don’t really want to know either. It came out of nowhere, and I didn’t see it coming. They were too many for me to notice any of them, and I was too busy protecting my head anyway.”

It wasn’t all lies. It did come out of nowhere, and he hadn’t seen it coming, and he had been protecting his head. He had noticed the girl though, she had been after him earlier, but there was no chance in hell he was going to tell a school nurse that some girl got the better of him.

“So the name Carmen doesn’t give you any associasions at all?” she asked. “No bells ringing, no vague memory creeping out from where it’s been hidden in the back of your mind?” Something in her voice suggested that she somehow knew. Maybe not much, but enough.

“No,” he lied.

“Kit, please. I know that she’s the head of this, and she’s the one who makes the boys go after you as well. A girl’s power over boys is not to be underestimated. There aren’t limits to what a girl can make boys do, if she just uses her tongue and eyelashes the right way.”

He sighed heavily and sat down on the bench again. Miss Headey sat down in front of him and put her hands in her lap.

“Okay, so, she’s been after me for a while. I don’t think you can call it after me though - she’s just been around a couple of times. And it’s been small, unimportant stuff - ugly looks, some cruel words, stuff like that. Never like the thing last week. And she wasn’t alone either. And I don’t know what her reason would be, so I don’t believe she’s behind it.”

He said it all in a hurry, in one breath. Miss Headey nodded, yet she didn’t seem satisfied.

“She was the one who kicked you, wasn’t she?”

He nodded.

“Do you want to tell me why they’re bullying you?”

He shook his head. “No. I already told you: I don’t know why. Maybe they just randomly picked me out because I’m not popular. Kids do that all the time.” He shrugged.

“You and I both know that that’s not the case,” miss Headey said carefully. “I get that you don’t want to tell me the actual reason, but I don’t want you to lie to me. It’s-” she paused and hesitated. “It’s alright if you like boys better than girls, Kit, and you shouldn’t feel ashamed, nor should you let the other students bully you for it.”

His head shot up at her words and he glared at her. His eyes narrowed and brows furrowed as he stood up, hovering over her, and stared her down. Anger flashed across his usually soft eyes when he hissed ‘I am _not_ gay’, his nostrils flaring. And with that he left the room, not lingering long enough to see her reaction or hear what she called after him.

What did she know? She wasn’t the one being held down while children kick and punched her. She wasn’t the one being called names behind her back, and to her face, because that happened at times, too, she wasn’t the friendless loser who never got invited to parties or asked to hang out after school. And he wasn’t gay, he knew he wasn’t, everyone was confused from one time to another. His hormones just happened to play a little on their own accord and it would be over soon. A few years from now and he would remember this period of his life and laugh at how stupid and oblivious he had been. Yes, that sounded reasonable.

Kit rounded the corner just as the bell ringed in his ears. He slipped into the classroom, grabbed his bag and ran for the Biology classroom down the hall. If there was one thing he didn’t need now, it was to be late and needing to explain his legal reason for barging in the door after the lesson had started.

\---:---

Lena Headey sighed and rubbed a hand over her eyes.

The boy’s reaction had not been unexpected. Quite on the contrary, she would’ve been more surprised if he had acted politely and told her that yes, that was just it. In fact, the way his mood had suddenly changed and the way he had charged out, indicated that her muses were right - if there hadn’t been any truth in it, he wouldn’t have been offended. Yet she had hoped that he would react differently. She wanted to help him, she wanted to take that girl Carmen and make sure she was properly punished. She couldn’t do it if he refused to cooperate.

Because that was exactly what she had tried to do - take Carmen. When Lena had finished her paperwork that Thursday afternoon, she had stepped into the principal Mr Bean’s office and explained in detail how injured the boy had been, what kind of violence he had been exposed to. She told him everything that Kit had told her, and had quoted exactly what Carmen had said. Mr Bean had written it all down, along with a rough list over injuries the youngsters had caused their fellow class mate, and told her that he would speak to the young girl with the inappropriate comment.

Lena had felt so much better when she had left the office. When she had been back Monday morning, that good feeling of having done something right had been washed away completely.

Mr Bean had been at her office, and he couldn’t bring her any good news. Carmen’s comment that Thursday afternoon had turned not to be evidence good enough. They had questioned her, oh yes, and she had stated that she didn’t know anything of a comment or the fact that she was supposed to have caused a fellow student harm. It was just a comment, it didn’t mean that she had actually done it. How she could know what kind of injuries the boy had suffered, had been found irrelevant.

All of her class mates had been on her side: the ones questioned had denied ever being near Kit, and none of them had seen Carmen do anything to hurt him the years they had known her. At the time when she supposedly should’ve kicked Kit, her friends had told that she was with them, preparing for the next lesson like that good student she was. The fact that no one but Lena had heard the comment, only strengthened the student’s case.

Mrs Fairley couldn’t be of any help either. She had seen the girl leave the classroom to talk to the school nurse, but since she hadn’t overheard the actual conversation, her point of view was useless, even if she agreed with Lena. Any student’s conversation with her was private anyway, for all they knew Carmen could’ve been talking to Lena about a personal problem or been making an appointment.

In other words, they had nothing on the girl. It was Lena’s words against the hers. If they only had another name, another face, anything to go by, but Kit had only been able to make out the girl. And she didn’t blame him the slightest; it was a wonder he’d even made out that much. He was not to blame for any of this: it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Lena cursed.

She had made the mistake before, it had costed her more than she had ever been willing to pay. She was not going to make the same mistake again. She was going to help Kit, whatever the price. Girls like Carmen were nothing but insecure, scarred and bruised kids themselves, with terrible memories or a horrible background on their mind. Kit was neither the source nor the solution of the girl’s problems. She was going to put his - and hers, hopefully - misery to an end.

I have a chance to make everything right again, she thought as she stood up and grabbed the bunch of papers she had sorted through when Kit had entered. She made sure to lock her medical cabinet and log off her computer before she left the room. Copying papers wasn’t the most interesting thing she did at work, but it had to be done.

Mrs Fairley passed her in the corridor on her way to her History lesson, asking how Kit was doing, and she replied that yes, all things considered, he seemed to be fine. She didn’t mention that it was probably limited to the physical. Mrs Fairley added that she was sorry that she couldn’t be of any help, but Lena smiled and assured her that they would find another way.

Mr Bean was the next to make contact, as she stood there by the copy machine and waited for it to get the job done.

“How is the kid doing?”

“Very well, all things considered,” she replied, repeating what she had told Mrs Fairley.

“I do understand that you want us to punish the girl,” he began, “but as long as we don’t have anything hand proof, we can’t do anything without getting her parents on our tail. It’s not fair, but we can’t be hundred percent certain that she’s behind all this.”

Lena nodded. She knew. He was right, it wasn’t fair, but what could they do? As long as they didn’t have anything hand proof, they had to give her the benefit of the doubt. Though Lena knew that if there was something she was sure of, it was that she didn’t doubt that the girl was responsible.

The copy machine beeped beside her to signalise that her papers were done. She sighed as she picked them up.

“I just really want to help the boy,” she told Mr Bean.

He nodded and squeezed her shoulder briefly.

“However, that was not why I wanted to talk to you. The family we talked about before the summer holiday, the Maddens from Scotland, have sorted out their house issues now. They are making the final arrangements as we speak and will come to town this weekend, and the boy is starting here first thing Monday.”

He handed her a bunch of papers. She flipped through them briefly. Dark, brown red hair, with big, round eyes and a full mouth, seventeen years old. His second year. She wondered why the change of home had been so urgent, why they couldn’t let the boy finish where he was when he only had two years left. She chose not to voice her muses.

“I thought they had three children?” she said instead.

“They do. The others are older, and won’t start here.”

“And the woman?” She had heard rumours of a new colleague as well.

“She will start working here the week after. You know, after they have settled in somewhat.”

Lena nodded. “Of course.”

She smiled politely and nodded quickly, and Mr Bean mirrored her actions, before they headed in the direction of their respective offices. God, this job was nothing but paper work at times.

\---:---

Richard Madden looked at his mother and smiled uneasily. She smiled back; she was very enthusiastic about this new place. A fresh start, new friends, maybe even a girlfriend? She was hopeful about that last one, that was for sure. But it wasn’t only a new school - it was a new town, a new area, even a new country. Albeit in Britain, but there was still a difference. He was an outsider before he had even met the other students.

He couldn’t think too much of it though - he couldn’t show that this scared him. Both for his own sake and his mother’s, but also so that the other kids wouldn’t pick up his fears and take advantage of them. He had learned that by now. Countless times they had picked on him at his former school, but here, he could start over, leave everything from Scotland behind and take in what England had to offer.

His mother gave him a stern look before knocking on the door, signalising for him to be quiet and behave, and led him into the principal’s office. There were three people in the room - a man in his mid fourties, clearly the principal, sitting behind the desk in the room. A man and a woman were seated on the sofa, both seemed to be somewhere around thirty. They all stood up as he and his mother entered.

The principal came forward and offered his hand.

“Sean Bean.”

“Richard Madden.”

“A pleasure to finally meet you, Richard. And here,” he stopped and motioned for the two others, “we have miss Headey and Mr Coster-Waldau.”

Miss Headey and Mr Coster-Waldau stood up. He shook hands with both of them.

“Miss Headey is the school nurse, so feel free drop by at her office talk to her about anything,” Bean said. “Coster-Waldau will be your main teacher. He only teaches Geography and English, though, but you’ll meet your other teachers later.”

Richard nodded. Miss Headey smiled at him and he managed to tilt the corners of his mouth upward.

“If you’ll come with us, we’ll show around the school,” miss Headey said. She motioned for the door, and he nodded, following them out the door. His mother stayed; he knew she had joined him inside because she was gonna talk work with Mr Bean.

The school was old, he realised, as they led him around, probably close to eighty-ninety years, if not even more. Parts of it had been restored, among them the toilets and the science classrooms. Richard found restored toilets a good thing - the locks at his former school had been so bad that it hadn’t helped to hide out in the cubicles. He hoped he wouldn’t need to do that here, but it was still nice to know that he had the possibility.

The cantine wasn’t too overflowed with students. One reason was that the lunch break was almost over, another was that the cantine had been extended to a new kitchen and more space, so that the students wouldn’t feel too claustrofobic while trying to enjoy their lunch. Basically it now held enough space for all the students, plus some extra square meters.

They crossed outdoor area to look at the gym. Miss Headey pulled out her key and unlocked the door, allowing him a little peak inside and pointing out where the dressing rooms and showers were located. Compared to the cantine it was pretty much the same size, but hence the fact that they didn’t use it for much except P.E., it wasn’t too bad. The bell rang as Miss Headey locked the door again, and they moved on, doing their best to avoid the other students as they rushed on their way to their lessons.

It was on their way back to the main building that Richard spotted him. A young boy sitting outside, most likely as old as he was, with thick, black curls and hands gripping the asphalt, showing off strong arms, compared how young he was. Some of the dark locks had fallen in front of his face, which made it hard to make out any of his features. He was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt - despite the fact that it was getting close to October, the sun was shining and it was still warm out, at least during daytime.

It didn’t occur to him that something was wrong before they got closer, and miss Headey gasped next to him. He heard her voice yelling as she ran over to the boy and bent down on her knees in front of him, putting her hands on his cheeks and running her fingers through his thick curls.

Richard picked up his pace and started walking toward them, but Mr Coster-Waldau reached out to grab his arm.

“Miss Headey will take care of it,” he said, not unkindly. Richard looked up at him. The teacher gave him a reassuring smile. “She has dealt with an injured student before. And we have to get to class. They’re waiting for us.”

He placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder and guided him to the door. They walked past miss Headey and the boy, and Richard couldn’t help it - he had to look.

The school nurse had pushed his thick locks out of the way, and he could see his face clearly from the side. It was screwed up in pain, his eyes and cheeks were stained with tears, but his features seemed soft, his face pale. The boy turned around and met his eyes. Richard bit back a cry and sank his teeth into his bottom lip.

Blood was covering the other side of the boy’s face, coming from what must be a rather large cut in his left eyebrow. His lip had split as well, colouring his soft shade of pink lips in blood red, redder than the lipstick miss Headey was wearing. A blue-purple colour surrounded his right eye, so swollen that his eyelock hung down, almost covering the eye.

Richard stopped and stared, pain and sympathy spreading over his face. Miss Headey pulled out a cloth and started wiping the blood away, making the boy squeeze his eyes shut in pain, but he didn’t look away from Richard. Once again Richard felt the urge to rush to the other boy’s side, put a hand on his forehead and wipe away the blood, whispering words of comfort and that everything was going to be alright. Even if it wasn’t, that was the only thing the boy needed to hear right now.

The feel of his teacher’s hand on his shoulder again made him snap out of the moment, and he turned around to meet his eyes. He was affected by the sight, too, but when he whispered that there was nothing they could do that miss Headey couldn’t, it made sense enough for Richard to join him. As he let go of the door so it could close behind him, Richard turned quickly and met the boy’s eyes for one last second.

Then he followed after his new teacher, fear still stinging in his eyes and making his throat close itself up. It was his first day, and he had already seen what he had fought to get away from. His right hand reached around to grip tightly around the skin on his left side, just below his ribbs, where his own, nasty scar still lingered.

\---:---

Kit winced as miss Headey’s cloth came in contact with his brow. It still hurt and stung and bled like hell.

“Who did this to you?” miss Headey whispered, her eyes filled with worry. Kit shook his head. “Was it that girl again, was it Carmen?” Kit shook his head again. He felt so dizzy. His vision swam. Miss Headey had three or four eyes, he wasn’t sure. That was weird. And her lips moved unsynchronised with her voice, which by the way sounded muffled somehow, though she was speaking directly at him. Huh. Weirder.

“Kit!” miss Headey suddenly yelled and slapped him loosely across his cheek. He whimpered and reached up to cover the cheek she’d slapped, but his vision had stopped swimming that much and he could hear her voice properly.

“What,” he managed. He hadn’t perceived her question.

“Is this Carmen’s doing? Is she after you again? Because I swear, if that girl has laid her hand on you again-”

“No, stop, it wasn’t her,” he interrupted. “I’m not that weak. It was one of those big, butch guys, you know, those bodybuilder types. He held me, and he was so strong that I could barely move, and then this other guy came and punched me. I didn’t notice him before he was on me, because I was struggling to get out of that other guy’s grip.”

He took a deep breath and said no more. Miss Headey didn’t reply, she just nodded, wiped away blood from his lips as well, before she put her cloth away and put her arms around his waist. If it hadn’t been for the way his head hurt and his split eyebrow throbbed, he probably would’ve snapped at her, but now he was just grateful for the support. With her help and a pained grunt he managed to get himself up.

As they made their way to Miss Headey’s office, she told him that she could talk to all of the ‘big, butch, bodybuilder guys’ and figure out which one it was. Boys were much more likely to confess when caught than girls were, she said. And if the guy had been taking orders from Carmen, chances were that he was going to give it away before the questioning had even started.

She lowered him down on her bench and pulled forth the equipment she needed, handing him a pack of ice to press against his eye. He hissed at the cold, then let out a relieved breath as the ice started to smoothen the pain. Miss Headey began to rinse his cuts. He sat there quiet and patient while she once again patched him up.

“How is your collar bone?” she asked, worried.

Automatically he started to roll his shoulder. It didn’t really hurt too bad.

“Okay, I think. The guy just held me, he didn’t do anything, and the guy who hit me only went for my face. When I tried to get loose, I was careful not to put too much pressure on it.”

Miss Headey seemed relieved and pleased by that. When she was done with his lip and moved on to his brow, the pain had started to fade away and he felt conscious enough to talk.

“I know it’s probably not relevant, miss Headey, but who was that guy outside?”

“Oh, the one with the brown red hair and leather jacket?”

“Yeah, him.”

“He’s new. He started today, actually, Mr Coster-Waldau and I were showing him around the school’s area.”

“New? Now? Why didn’t he start with us on the scheduled date?”

“That I don’t know, and even if I did, I hadn’t been allowed to tell you. Such information is confidential. And private.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

She gave him a small smile at that.

“Is he in Coster-Waldau’s class?”

“Yes. His second year.”

“What’s his name?”

“Richard Madden. He’s Scottish.”

Kit didn’t reply. He repeated the boy’s name in his head. He ran his tongue over his split lip and swallowed, as if to feel the taste of the name. The blood tasted sweet, in a way, and not at all the iron-like taste he had felt last time. He closed his eyes, and pictured the boy with the smooth skin, the full lips, the shocked look in his eyes when he had noticed Kit’s own appearance, and tasted the name again. It fit him, in a way.

He didn’t register that miss Headey was watching him closely, taking in the way his lips tilted up and his features relaxed. She was smiling carefully to herself. It wasn’t the first time she noticed things before the students did themselves.


	4. Chapter 4

Richard was filled with relief and content when he came home Monday afternoon. Despite his worries, his class had seemed nice enough. No one had laughed when he had opened his mouth, and the questions they had asked were normal, regular ones, no mocking or harassment intended. And with his background from his old school, that was all he was asking for.

Still, he had trouble forgetting the young boy in the school yard. His unruly, dark curles, the blood on his lips, the split eyebrow, the big bruise covering his right eye. And the look in his eyes. The pain, the humiliation, the frustration, he knew it all too well himself.

He sighed heavily as he opened the door to his room and flung his backpack down on the floor. With the furniture occupying half the room, and unpacked carton boxes taking up the other half, there was barely any space left to walk. And Richard didn’t have any needs to unpack them anytime soon, either. Maybe the kids at school just pretended, and they had to move again in only a couple of weeks. He wasn’t very keen on unpacking the boxes in vain.

Just the thought of unpacking his memories brought back the ones he wanted to leave behind.

They hadn’t exactly been very kind to him at his old school, to put it mildly. They had rarely been physical, and he had actually been releaved the times they took it out on his body instead of his psyke. It could be laughs in the classroom when he said something wrong. Or correct, even, if they thought it sounded stupid. It could be leaving him alone in the school yard, which happened quite often, and it could be not passing the ball to him while playing football.

Small things, things that seemed irrelevant and unimportant when you experienced them once in a while, but when it went on and on for years, it broke you down eventually. Adding the fact that he had been incredibly shy from the very first day at school, you had the perfect recipe for ruining a young boy’s life. They had seen him as an easy target pretty fast, and God, kids could be cruel. No room for thinking about how the victim might feel and no concern for what might happen if the teachers found out.

The teachers never did, however. And he never told them. He told his parents, and his older siblings, but there was little the school could do when his mother talked to them. To let the kids know that he felt left out would only make thing worse; both he, his parents and the school knew that, at the same time, they couldn’t just leave it be. The solution had been that the teachers should be extra aware and pay some extra attention. At least, that was the theory. Practice was something completely different.

The feeling of being left out and simply not cared about, was just too painful to handle. He rarely allowed himself to cry, but more than once had he just laid in bed in his room and stared at the roof, his throat closing up and all the negative thoughts threatening to strangle him.

It wasn’t before the end of his first year at high school that they had actually gone physical on him. It had started out as a stupid mistake - he had tried to stand up for himself, for _once_ \- when a group of friends had excluded him from a project. It had been in the middle of the classroom, but on his way home that day, they hadn’t been merciful. It was the day he had got his scar.

One of the guys had a beer bottle made of glass, and as a couple of other guys had held him down, the guy with the bottle - Richard couldn’t remember his real name, everyone had just called him Tab from the very beginning - had smashed it against the ground and picked up one of the biggest, ugliest pieces of the shattered glass. Richard had writhed and protested, begging them to let him go and _not do this to him_ , but Tab with the glass had just grinned at that. The other guys had grinned back at him.

He had driven the broken glass in just below his ribs on his left side. Blood had quickly covered his body and his clothes, and tears had covered his eyes and cheeks not long after. It hadn’t been on purpose - the tears had just started rolling uncontrollably at their own accord. The guys had laughed their asses off at that, and it had given them something new to tease him about.

_Gonna run home to mummy crying, chicken?_

He could still hear them. The laughs. The grins. Their hands on his wrists. The splintered, filthy glass piercing through his skin.

He was lucky he didn’t live so far from school that he had had major trouble getting home. The guy had left the splintered glass in his body, which Richard first afterward realised was a fortunate coincidence. If it had been pulled out, he would’ve bled a healthy lot before he got home, and it was a good possibilty that he wouldn’t have made it home at all that day.

The doctors had removed the glass by surgery, just to make sure that he wasn’t going to suffer. That way, they could also control the bleeding without thinking about what he might feel about seeing that much blood. The wound also needed a good rinse - the glass had been smashed against the ground and was covered in dirt and dried alcohol. Just one wrong bacteria left in the wound when they patched it up could lead to an infection.

He had been fine - he could even go to school the next day, though he had been drugged down on pain killers. The school had been informed and the guys had been properly punished this time, though it didn’t stop them from leaving him out of every social event and happening. He still wasn’t a part of the gang. And he had accepted that - after the incident with the broken glass, he hadn’t even tried to make an effort. He had just wanted to be left alone.

Richard sat down on the bed and let his hand slide up under his t-shirt to touch the scar. It was a clearly visible one, several centimeters long and a centimeter wide. The colour of it was paler than his body, with a touch of redder skin around the edges. He would always have it, they had told him. Back then he had felt miserable; he hadn’t wanted everyone to know what an outsider and loner he had been at school.

Now though, he was sort of glad to have it. There was no particular reason, it was just a part of him. Like you had parts of your body that you hated, you also had parts that you weren’t that displeased with, and the scar had just grown on him. It had been there for such a long time now, and it reminded him that he had been vulnerable once - something he was definitely going to change.

But seeing that boy in the school yard that day had woken some painful memories. The look in his eyes hid so much pain and angst, a feeling he could relate to so much more than he wanted to. The cut in the boy’s eyebrow had bled heavily, and he wondered if the other was going to get a nasty scar there, just like the one he had on his side.

Richard withdrew his hand and pulled his t-shirt down again. The scar wound be there forever, no matter how much he tried to smoothen it. He stole a look over at the unpacked boxes and the History books. Unpack he could do anytime - it wasn’t likely that he would get a visitor any time soon -, but if he wanted to keep up and make up for the month he had missed, he’d better start reading right away. With a groan he pushed himself up and got off the bed.

His scars couldn’t be compared to the the scars of those who survived the battles in the world wars and the concentration camps, neither physically nor mentally. In a way, it was a comforting thought.

\---:---

On Tuesday morning Lena was not looking forward to her working day. First off, she had a lot of paperwork piled up. Stupid stuff she should’ve done ages ago: a paper here, another there, which had seemed small, unimportant and easy to get done when she had the time, but absolute hell when you suddenly had too many of them. Something she had now.

And she had to find that guy who had went for Kit Harington. It was ridiculous of her to care this much, it wasn’t even her job, but she desperately wanted to help him. The injuries alone were a reason; she definitely didn’t want him in her office once more, scared for what she might be met with. Twice had he been in, both times had been serious enough. If he came in a third time, she was scared that he was going to get something permanent, and then she didn’t count the wounds that would leave scars on his thigh, chest and stomach.

She dropped her handbag in her sofa, followed by her jacket, sat down and turned her computer on. She might as well start out with the guy Harington had been talking about, just to get it done with. The paperwork had been lying about for a week, surely it could wait a couple of hours.

She opened the classes of third grade, and flipped quickly through the names and pictures. First she was scared she was going to miss someone, since she wasn’t entirely sure where the line went and what Harington had meant with ‘big, butch bodybuilder’, but when she was halfway through the second class, she didn’t doubt that she had cracked it.

A bald one, huge biceps and chest broader than a full grown man. Wearing a white wifebeater on the picture, along with black jeans. His arms was crossed over his chest, supporting the appearance of both his arms and chest, though she didn’t doubt that that was close to the reality. And she definitely didn’t blame the young Harington that he hadn’t been able to fight one like this guy off, especially when he had been taken from the back, and still had the broken collar bone to deal with.

She looked at his name. Trey Jones. Well, big muscles couldn’t help him now, he was going in. Quickly she wrote down his name and class, before she moved on through the it and onto the next one.

In total she came up with four guys that she thought had potential. If none of them cracked she would have to go back through the lists - she considered the chances good that one among the guys she had found was her man. Along with Trey there was one Gary Smith, a Carl Brandon and Benjamin Tyler.

Oh, well. She was going to speak to them all. She just hoped that Carmen was behind this. If not, she would have trouble breaking them. Lena rubbed the bridge of her nose and moved to her temples. It was best to just get started and get on with it.

She stood up and left her office.

\---:---

“Kit!” Someone called, and Kit turned around to see Sally running toward him.

He didn’t really know her that well. They sat beside each other in class, they cooperated at projects and shared notes when they had missed a lecture or a day. She was short, sweet and smart when she wanted to be, but it was clear to them both that the only reason they were friends - if they could even call it a friendship - was because no one else wanted to be friends with them. Which was actually alright, in Kit’s mind, seeing as they both knew where they stood and didn’t get too involved with each other’s private life.

He stopped and dropped his bag.

“I was wondering,” she began when she caught up, pushing her glasses higher up on her nose and adjusting the bag hanging over her shoulder, “if you wanted to come to my party on Saturday?”

Now that was a surprise. And not because he was invited, but Sally had to be the most introverted person he knew, except himself. She was bright and clever, but she didn’t have any real friends that he knew of, and most of the class just simply ignored her. Her looks didn’t exactly help her - despite the fact that she was kind and sweet, she was small and wore no make-up, and her clothes were always loose. She wasn’t fat or overweighed, but the clothes she wore could make it seem that way, even though it was obvious at times that she had something under them that was worth showing off.

Yet she always smiled and was always helpful, so he kind of liked her. Even though he didn’t see her as a friend or anything, he enjoyed her company and was glad that his place was by her desk, not anyone else’s.

He looked down at her and shrugged. “What are you having a party for?”

“It’s my birthday, actually. And we’ve been in the same class for a while now, and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get the whole class together and do something fun.”

Kit froze. _The whole class_. He definitely didn’t like the sound of that. Carmen was one of them, several of the guys were under her spell. If he went, things could get real nasty, he wasn’t an idiot. Beaten up twice in a short while proved that.

“The _whole_ class,” he repeated, just to be sure. Sally nodded.

“Yeah... That a problem?” she bit her lip nervously.

She obviously wanted him to come, and Kit wasn’t surprised - he was one of the few who were kind to her. But they weren’t friends. Not that they had ever voiced the subject - because it was nothing to voice - it was just a sort of silent agreement. She was just as much of a loner as he was, and two loners together... It just didn’t work. Especially when she sometimes - like now - tried so desperately to fit in, while he just didn’t care.

“I- I don’t think it’s a very good idea,” he replied, trying to make it sound reasonable and honest, while searching in panic for a good reason to decline.

“Why not? It’ll be fun! And only the class, not the whole school, so it won’t be that many, and-”

“Sally,” he interrupted. “I don’t think it’s a good idea either way. Carmen’s gonna be there, and she doesn’t exactly like my guts, and I don’t want to ruin things for you.”

“If Carmen’s the problem I could just leave her out and not invite her?” Sally tried.

Kit shook his head. “No, go ahead and invite her. She’ll probably be thrilled. I’m not too fond of parties anyway, and I’ve got stuff to do, so I think it’s for the better.”

It wasn’t a complete lie: he did have some homework he felt he should’ve done long ago. Not that it was actually a good enough reason, but she didn’t need to know that. And he was desperate not to go, even if he didn’t want to hurt her too much.

She sighed and bit her lip again. “Will you let me know if you change your mind?”

He nodded. “Of course. And even if I don’t: enjoy yourself. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you around.”

And with that she was off to her locker to get her books for the next lesson. Kit shook his head and picked up his bag again, making his way for his own locker. He hated giving the girl false hope and ruin her wish, but he had already made up his mind. He wasn’t going. That was a final.

\---:---

Carl Brandon missed the first rumours of a party when Lena Headey came and picked him up. Just his height made her nervous, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of showing him that. He was the third one she brought in, no way she was going to back off now. All good things comes in threes, she reminded herself. Maybe she was lucky and Brandon proved to be the guy.

The two others hadn’t been easy - they had denied everything and one of them had even claimed that he didn’t even know who Harington was. She had let them both go after a quarter or so, seeing as she had two more to question before she could drop to conclusions. Now, she was tired and just wanted her lunch break. If this Brandon turned out to be just as hard as the others, she was going to do something drastic.

“So,” she said as she sat down and urged the boy to do the same, “do you want to guess why you are here?”

“Is this because of the tagging on the wall during the holidays? Because I swear, that was no harm intended and it wasn’t even that much.”

Lena raised her eyebrows. Mr Bean had actually mentioned something about that. She made a mental note about dropping him a clue about that later.

Clearly Brandon had mistaken the look on her face, because he continued: “It wasn’t even my idea.”

“What wasn’t your idea?” she prompted, just for fun.

“To tag ‘New York Police Department’.”

She almost giggled. That had actually been a rather funny joke. She fought to keep a stern face and went on to the real case.

“Unfortunately, it’s more serious than just some tagging on a wall,” she began. “I persume you know who Kit Harington is?”

The boy in front of her furrowed his thick brows. “The poof in second grade?”

“Language, please,” she reminded him. “And is it really that relevant? Don’t you think it’s his business whether he likes girls or boys?”

Carl shrugged. “I dunno. I was just told that he was a poof and had done some bad shit and deserved to be punished.”

God, was this going to be so easy? She almost didn’t believe it. For the first time she felt like she saw light in the end of the tunnel of this nasty case.

“Punished how?”

“You know, show him what it actually means to screw around with boys.”

Lena swallowed. She didn’t want to think about what they might have done to the boy if they hadn’t been in the school yard during the day, but in some dark alley downtown or one of the short cuts from the school to the football field.

“I take it that you were one of the guys beating him up yesterday?”

The guy’s eyes widened, like he just realised that he had practically given himself away.

“You’re taking this the wrong way. I didn’t beat him. I just held him.”

“That makes no difference to me.”

“Does too! It wasn’t my doing that he got hurt! It was this other guy, he did the punching. I got hurt myself, the queer fucking scraped up my shin because he kicked like mad. Didn’t want to be a good boy and hold still.”

Lena raised an eyebrow. The guy threw up his arms.

“If you don’t believe me, you can just talk to him! Or my mate, he-” Carl stopped, suddenly realising that he was about to give away his friend. “I mean, none of us were behind this. It was this girl who told us that he was queer and that it was our business, as _proper guys_ , she said, to beat him up and teach him a lesson.”

Inside, Lena was trembling, both with anger and excitement. She had her. She had the proof she needed; Carmen was behind this, Carmen was her girl.

“And this girl, do you know who she was?”

“Of course. Everyone knows her. Badass little thing, you don’t fuck with her. She threatened to ruin things between my mate and his girlfriend and all.”

“And her name?”

“Carmen.”

 _Gotcha_ , Lena thought in triumph. _Take that, you bitch_. Fighting to keep a stern face and not show her relief, she continued. “Thank you for your help. Now, go find your friend and report yourselves to Mr Bean.”

“What? Why?”

“I do hope you understand that beating up another student is punishable?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Don’t worry. I’ll tell him to be nice, since you’ve helped me a great deal. A day or two, three tops.”

“You’re exspelling me?”

“Yes.”

The guy just stared at her for a moment, before he got up and walked to the door.

“And by the way, while you’re at it - why don’t you tell him who’s responsible for the tagging as well?”

Carl opened his mouth to say something, before he realised his mistake and left the room.

\---:---

After the incident in the school yard, even after miss Headey had done her best to clean the split eyebrow, Kit still hadn’t felt well. The nausea had come in waves and he had been dizzy most of the time. Dispite the heavy bleeding, the cut wasn’t as deep as miss Headey had feared, and she’d been able to fix it up herself. Now though, the waves of nausea had stopped and the dizziness was just a light, slightly comfortable buzz.

Kit flopped down on the bed and put on that CD again.

The collar bone had started to heal properly now, at least before that guy had grabbed him and he’d wriggled a bit too hard to get loose. He had been able to raise his arm careful and slow above his head that morning, but he knew he had to go easier on it now. It wasn’t necessary to check it out, there weren’t much to do about a broken collar bone anyway, but he didn’t want to push it. It had been pushed enough for the day.

The other cuts and bruises from the day weren’t too bad, either. The split eyebrow would heal, as would his lip. A black eye was going to decorate his face for a couple of days, but it would be gone soon enough. Or so he hoped.

He couldn’t say the same about the cuts on his lower belly. He had managed to keep his hands away from them since his last time at miss Headey’s, but now they were itching worse than ever and he couldn’t stand it anymore. He flipped over on his stomach, squirming, but it did no good. He turned over again and placed one hand on each wound. If he only kept pressure on them, maybe they would stop itching so bad.

For a while he lay there, adding pressure, easing on it, just doing his best not to scratch, because that was something he couldn’t do. He couldn’t risk that the stings would loosen or something like that. Of course, he didn’t believe that that could actually happen, but he wanted to heal as well as he could and when miss Headey had told him not to pick at the stings, well, then there was a reason for it.

Pressure didn’t help though, no matter how much he added, so he went on to circles instead. Keeping the touch easy, he drew circles around the wounds, careful not to touch them, but keeping at the swollen area. He kept his fingers steady; he couldn’t risk touching the stings, he knew it would make him scratch. The itching just became worse and worse.

But then, at one point, his finger slipped and brushed over one sting. Just a brush couldn’t hurt, so he did it again, and again, noticing that it made him relax in a whole different way. He let out a deep breath, feeling the itching slowly fade away and be replaced by something else, a stirring feeling below his fingertips, warm and arousing.

He sat up as he suddenly recognised the feeling and jumped out of bed. Fuck this, he was getting a packet of ice to numb the area so he wouldn’t feel anything but _cold_.

Back in bed he laid down on his back with the ice packet on his lower belly, and put his arms behind his head. As the music continued playing, the memories of Jack slowly started to come back.

Jack was old enough to have his own place, something Kit both admired and envied. He wanted his own place, too, being able to do what he wanted, when he wanted and not worry about the bathroom being occupied or someone stealing the chocolate he’d hidden away. Jack’s flat had been small, very much so, but it had been cozy and in a strange way felt like home. Maybe it was because Jack’s scent lingered in every room and corner, or because his stuff was all over the place, but it didn’t matter. Kit had liked the place the minute Jack had let him in the door.

Jack had kissed him, soft and slow at first, then a little deeper, a little more enthusiasm, and nipped at his bottom lip. He had whispered something about the food getting cold and pushed Kit down to sit on the couch, switching the TV on to mute. They had eaten, talked about their day, their week, and after a while turned up the sound on the TV to watch some comedy drama. Jack had put his arm around him, and Kit had rested his head on Jack’s shoulder.

Afterward, when they had cleaned up, Jack was sick of waiting. He had taken hold of Kit’s hips, rubbing them with his thumbs and kissed him again, deep and intense. He’d been pushy, which had scared Kit slightly, but his kisses had been so demanding that it was impossible to resist. Kit had been so nervous that he practically jumped in Jack’s arms when he heard something slam. Jack had laughed at him then, telling him it was the bedroom window, because he always left it open. And speaking of the bedroom...

Jack had pushed him against the counter, kisses turning more intense and heated every second. He had gripped Kit’s backside with both hands and dug his nails in, pushing and rubbing harder and faster against him. Kit had had no choice but to keep up the best he could, meeting the kisses and trying not to pay too much attention to all the other stuff. It had gone too fast for his liking.

Kit swallowed and rubbed both hands over his face. He felt warm and embarrassed. They had never had sex, not that night either, but the way it had turned him on had been so different from the times when it was him, the night, his bed, his hand and no one else around. It wasn’t just wrapping your hand around yourself to ease the pressure. It was... something else. Whatever that was.

Kit looked down his stomach. The itching had stopped, and the cold he had felt when he put the ice packet on the wounds was gone, too. He removed the packet and got up; might as well start on the damn homework, it wasn’t like he had something better to do. He brought out his English textbooks and sat down by the desk, keeping the CD player on.

In some way, he missed Jack. Or, not Jack, but he missed having someone to love and to love him back. Well, maybe not love, seeing as he and Jack hadn’t be in love that way, but someone to be fond of. Someone he felt comfortable around. It didn’t even need to be a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Just someone who cared.

\---:---

Unlike the day before, Lena felt on top of the world on Wednesday afternoon. All the up-built paperwork had been done, none of the students had had too serious injuries or personal problems, and she had something on Carmen. The whole day she walked around and held her tongue in order not to sing out loud - she was going to get the girl today. Make her confess, make her pay - or just apologise to Harington for the bad behaviour. It didn’t matter. The girl was hers.

The clock had just passed 2pm when there was a knock on her door and Carmen stepped in.

“Sit down,” Lena told her stiffly. Despite the happiness she had felt all day, the sight of the girl made her slightly nervous. And now that she was here, Lena wasn’t even sure if it would go the way she wanted. Keep calm, she told herself, it won’t help if you show her that you’re nervous.

Carmen did as she was told.

“Now, I guess you realise why you’re here?” Lena began.

“Is this about the comment the other day? I thought Mr Bean told you that it was nothing to go by and you should leave it.” The girl was on the defensive, alright.

Lena gave her a stiff smile. “No, as a matter of fact, it’s not. You’ve probably been told that the Harington boy was beaten up again two days ago. The guy who did it gave me your name.”

Carmen raised an uninterested eyebrow. “So?”

“You had told him and his mate that they should punish him.”

“Punish him, that’s it? And why would I want to do that?” Carmen was being sarcastic. Lena resisted the urge to raise her voice. The girl’s control was a facade, inside she was trembling. If she could gain the same control herself and appear just as controlled, the girl would give in. Eventually.

“Because of his sexual orientation.”

Carmen laughed out loud and rolled her eyes. “Sexual orientation, yeah right. Haven’t you heard the boy? He points out that he’s not gay when people ask him. He denies it in every way possible, and I haven’t exactly seen him blow off a guy in the hallway. Now, why should I punish him for that? For being _straight_?”

Lena stared at her. Could she be right? She couldn’t, could she? Yes, Kit had told her that she was wrong when she told him it was okay to like boys, but she had thought the way he acted pretty much proved that he was in denial. She’d seen it all before, she had experience. She was nurse at a school, for christ’s sake. She had seen both boys and girls struggling with their sexual orientation before. Carmen was lying. Kit didn’t speak that much at school, and he wasn’t very extroverted; he wouldn’t walk up to everyone and tell them how straight he was, regardless if it was true or not. But before she had the time to reply, Carmen continued.

“Let me give you some advice, Lena,” she said, using her first name. “Stop caring. Stop digging. Save yourself the effort and the time, I’m sure you’ve got better things to waste it on.”

“I have proof enough against you, girl,” Lena replied. She really didn’t care about hiding her emotions anymore.

“What, something some stupid, drugged guy said in order not to be blamed for something he’d done? You know as well as I do that that won’t do.” Carmen leant back and laughed shortly.

“They are still witnesses. And then, of course, there’s the things Harington claims himself.”

“Exactly. Claims. How can you be so sure he speaks the truth? Why him before me?”

“The boy has been beaten blue and bloody, and I intend to find the one responsible for it.”

“Then take the stupid boy you talked to. He admitted being behind it, didn’t he?” That sarcastic smile appeared on the girl’s face again.

“Sorry, my bad.” Lena smiled sarcastically back. “I meant that I intend to find the one who’s the head of this, so it can be stopped and Harington won’t be beaten up at school every other day.”

Carmen leant forward and smirked.

“You sure you want to press this further? Because everyone has started to take notice of your interest in the Harington boy lately. There are rumours spreading. People are starting to ask questions and speculate. I wonder what the principal would say if I walked up to him and told him about your secret relationship with a _student_.”

Lena didn’t reply. She _couldn’t_ reply - anything she said could be taken the wrong way. Carmen couldn’t be serious. She wouldn’t go that far, she couldn’t go that far. Yet, if Mr Bean were to believe the disturbed girl, she could lose her job. And Lord knew Harington had problems enough already. She hated to admit it, but Carmen had gotten the better of her. There was no way she could take her right now, not like this.

Eventually she opened her mouth.

“Are you threatening me, Carmen?”

“Threatening? Who said anything about threatening? I’m just saying that if you go on digging in this and tell someone that I have anything to do with it, there are more secrets to be spilled.”

This wasn’t happening, Lena thought. This girl wasn’t for real.

“But if I stop?” she asked. Her only chance now was to give the girl the impression that she’d won. Like Lena would ever let her do that, but right now she didn’t feel like she had a choice.

“If you stop, no one will ever know if I had anything to do with it. And then no one will ever know if you’re in an illegal relationship with your little boy toy either.” Carmen took a pause. “I take it that we have a deal?”

This was so, so wrong on every single level, Lena thought, as she opened her mouth and replied ‘yes’ in a small voice.

“Good.”

Carmen stood up and stalked out of the room. Lena couldn’t do anything but stare after her when she closed the door. So close, and yet the girl had her twisted around her littlefinger, like she was some kind of puppet and a servant to the students. She had woken up thinking that this would be the end of it all. And now it was more of a mess than ever.

When she was certain that the girl was way out of hearing reach, she grabbed her hair and screamed. Only once, just enough to get the worst frustration out. Then she went back to her papers, and she tried not to think about what kind of punishment Harington would get. She just hoped that there wouldn’t be any - and if so, that they would be gentle.

But in her heart, she knew she was hoping for too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a side note, I'm not going to take credit for the NYPD thing. That happened at my old school during the holidays about five years back.


	5. Chapter 5

Sally’s wish to keep her party a secret because her parents wouldn’t let her have too many over, was soon killed. The rumours about her ‘little birthday party with the class’ spread like wildfire. By the end of the lunch break on Thursday, the entire grade knew of it, and most of the older grade and half the younger had been informed. Some spread the rumour just to spread it, others said they’d be there and spread it to get their mates to join in, too.

Richard was trying to catch up with his History homework when two of the guys in his new class came over to him. They went on and on about this small, innocent second grader having a private party, and someone needed to fuck that up. It was an unwritten rule: if students arranged a party, especially a private one, the olders had to be there to bring alcohol, noise and fights. That was just the way it was.

Richard was in the middle of the Cuba crisis when one of the guys from his new class slapped him hard on the shoulder.

“Hey, newbie,” the guy said, sitting down next to Richard.

“Heard about the party yet?” the other one prompted.

This was new. Not only because he hadn’t heard anything of a so-called ‘party’, but because he had rarely been invited to them. “Party?”

“Yeah, at this lame girl’s house, she’s home alone, and all. Perfect opportunity to wreck some furniture!”

“Look, I don’t think-”

“Oh, common, mate, you have to join. A chance to get to know people. Hit on the hottest ones. Get absolute shitfaced and get laid!”

Richard shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve got homework to catch up on-”

“Oh, my arse!” the other one said. “Homework you can do another time, _anytime_. This is your one and only chance to become a part of the class and the school. Everyone’s gonna be there.”

Richard sighed and closed his books. He stared at the two other ones.

“I can’t promise anything.” He wasn’t going, he just needed to say something that would make them go away.

“So you’ll think it through?” the first one said, hopeful.

“Yeah. Now, if you would excuse me, I’ve got a class to attend to.” He got up, flung his bag over his shoulder and picked up his books.

“Later, mate.”

“We’ll see you there!”

He didn’t reply. He preferred to be left alone and relax in the weekends. Read books, finish homework he hadn’t done, rehears for tests. Catch up for a couple of hours with friends. Only problem was that his friends had become fewer and fewer, and the few he had had, had so many others that they didn’t have much time for him anyway. And after the day where he had got his scar, he had pretty much kept to himself.

And now he didn’t have anyone. It didn’t bother him that much, he had gotten used to it now, but it also made him uneasy about the party. He didn’t know anyone; how would it be to attend a party where no one knew who he was and no one actually cared either? He had liked his class from the get-go, yes, but that was because none of them had been rude or disrespectful, they had just behaved. That they had behaved around him the first time he entered their classroom didn’t mean that they wanted to become his friends and would miss him at parties he didn’t join.

He wasn’t joining. Period. Exclamation mark.

\---:---

It was a stupid idea to come here. It was a ridiciulous, idiotic, downright stupid idea. He had already told Sally that he couldn’t come, and he couldn’t, because he wasn’t going to hang out with people who didn’t do anything but bully and beat him, yet here he was. Outside her house, watching the lights blinking in the windows, listening to the music pumping from the speakers and through the wall. People shouted, laughed, cried, screamed. Danced, drank, made out, puked. It was disgusting. He was glad he wasn’t a part of it.

He turned to leave when he heard the door behind him be opened, and a skinny figure stepped out. By the time he realised who it was, it was already too late.

“Oh, well, well, well, what do we have here?” The skinny figure walked toward him, slowly and controlled, with a beer in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other.

“Carmen,” he stated.

“And Kit. Little, afraid, cute, scared Kit,” she replied in a sickening sweet voice. She’d been drinking a lot, he realised, which made her controlled temper and big, charming smile seem even more alarming.

“I’m not afraid,” he tried, hoping that she was drunk enough not to notice that he felt nervous and uneasy. She laughed at him, deep and loud, and took a sip of her beer.

“Oh yes, you are, now that you haven’t got a boyfriend to protect you.”

“I don’t need protection. Not from you.”

“You sure about that?”

She threw her empty beer can into the bushes as she approached him. He stayed where he was - moving backward would only show that he didn’t like the way this was heading. Any sign of weakness and she’d be on him, he knew.

She didn’t stop before she was so close that he could smell her breath. It stank of alcohol and smoke. Their noses almost touched when she stood up on her toes and bit out, “You sure you can take everything I have to give?”

He didn’t flinch. “Yes,” he replied.

Her arm - the one not holding the wine bottle - came to rest around his waist, and he gulped. If this was what she meant about giving, he wasn’t sure he could handle it after all. She leaned up just another millimeter, their lips almost brushing.

“You’re such a stupid boy, Kit Harington,” she hissed, and pushed her knee up between his legs.

\---:---

Richard thought he had arrived late at the party, which made him feel even more out of place and more of an outsider, but soon he realised that that was the least of his worries. More people were coming every minute, bringing more drinks and more volume. The poor girl, Sally, was doing her best to keep things in order and making sure that no one tripped over something, but now she was starting to lose control for real. A few minutes ago someone had accidently tripped over one of her mother’s vases, and now she was nowhere to be found. Richard guessed she’d gone hiding in her room.

Richard was on his way to the door to grab his jacket and leave, when the girl grabbed his arm. He recognised her vagually as Jenna, one of the girls in his class. Her long, blonde hair was styled to no end, and her eyes were surrounded by twice as much make-up as always. Her short skirt showed off her smooth, lean legs and thighs perfectly, and her top left little to the imagination.

In the back of his mind he knew that it was a bad idea to give in, but something a lot stronger told him that one dance couldn’t hurt. And she was gorgeous. And he wasn’t in such a hurry to leave, it was just something he had thought of because he was bored.

Jenna tangled her delicate fingers in his and lead him into the living room. The music was loud and awful, but the beats made him move in unison to the song and the girl. She was so close, one leg between his, both her hands on his chest and occasionally pressing herself even closer. He could feel the heat of her body, smell the alcohol on her breath, see the skin revealed as she moved and her top rode up.

He swallowed and stiffled a groan. He wasn’t sure if it was of pleasure or not.

But when she reached up and hooked her arms around his neck, bringing him down and herself up and pressed her lips against his, he stopped moving and put his hands on her hips, pushing her away. She whined and moved closer, opening her mouth and swiped her tongue over his lips. For a moment he hesitated and thought _fuck it, just this once_ , but when one of her hands dropped and slid down into his trousers, he pushed her away again, forcefully this time.

The look in her eyes was hurt and confused. He sighed, took a step back and put his hands up, as if to guard himself.

“No,” he said firmly.

Then he pushed past her and went down the hall to find his shoes. He wanted out of there, and he wanted out fast. It wasn’t that he didn’t like to have some innocent fun once in a while - he quite liked that - but this wasn’t home. This wasn’t what he was used to. He had been here for a week, he needed time to acclimatise. To make a mistake and make everyone get the wrong impression was something he didn’t want, especially not the first week. He had plenty of time and he would probably make a lot of mistakes, he didn’t need to start off so early and on purpose.

He pushed his feet down into his shoes and closed the door behind him. He was glad he hadn’t had too much to drink - barely anything, in fact - and that he didn’t live far away. He could get home easily by just walking, and he clearly didn’t feel like calling anyone to pick him up right now.

He had barely gotten out the door before he heard hissing voices and whimpers. He moved toward the sound, curious who it might be, and rounded the corner. And stopped dead in his tracks.

A slender figure - a girl, judging by the voice and the hair - was leaning over something on the ground. She was yelling, things he didn’t get and things that didn’t make sense, hearing only bits as she screamed on top of her lungs: ‘you fucking ruined everything’. He couldn’t make out anything of the figure on the ground, but it was obvious that this was not something that he or she was in on.

Richard approached slowly, not wanting to disturb for several reasons. Yes, he realised that he had to help the kid on the ground somehow, but what good was it if the girl spotted him and went for him as well? She was obviously drunk and way beyond pissed off, and he didn’t know what she was capable of. The reflection of broken glass on the ground beside them - a wine bottle, maybe - indicated what kind of mood she was in.

The girl’s voice suddenly grew even louder and her fist slammed into her victim. ‘If it hadn’t been for you’ he heard, but lost the rest in the sounds coming from the person on the ground. The cry piercing through the night made the blood freeze in Richard’s veins and cold shivers ran down his spine. This girl knew how to hit, and she was not afraid to take advantage of it. He looked around, desperate after something to protect himself with. Anything would do. Anything that could make the girl back off. He had underestimated people before, and that had paid off with a nasty scar which would never really heal. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

The gravel made a soft noise under his feet, but the girl was too caught up in the moment to notice. He jumped suddenly when she raised her fist - covered in blood, he had the time to realise - before he tripped. The gravel stung against his open palms and only denim clad backside, but he barely felt anything. Panic shot through his body as he watched the girl straighten up and look around.

His eyes fell on the ground before him. It couldn’t be.

He had just the time to grab the branch before her eyes fell on his. The look in those intense dark eyes was so cold and harsh that it could make the blood in his body freeze. Her eyes were surrounded by just as dark make-up, and her lips looked black, too, though that had to be the lack of illumination. It also made her hair look darker, some kind of dirty blonde.

Her brows furrowed and her eyes sharpened when she realised that she didn’t know him, but then again, she didn’t seem to care. She took a step away from the figure before her. For a second she was debating if he was worth waisting time on. He knew he looked like a dead scared kitten - the fear had to be more than obvious in his eyes. Her lips tilted upward - she had noticed. She took another step toward him.

“Back off!” he shouted and held up the branch, his entire body trembling.

Somehow, not that he understood why, it worked. Not fully, but at least she stopped and stared at him. She bit her lip, reached for the necklace hanging around her neck and started fumbling with it. He swallowed. His throat felt dry and thick, blocked completely so that he could barely breathe. Her stare was boring through his eyes, practically seeking into his soul and brain, and he suddenly felt that she was stripping him naked.

And then she was gone. Vanished, out of thin air. Like she had never been there. It happened so quickly that he didn’t catch one single movement before she was gone, covered by trees, shadows and darkness.

Quickly, Richard got up and crept over to the other person on the ground. It was a boy, he realised, his right arm clutching his left shoulder and the left hand between his legs. As he came closer, he slowly started to recognise the boy - it was the one he had seen outside school on his first day, with a bruise forming around his eye and blood covering his face.

He crept nearer the boy and put his hand on his shoulder, the one which seemed to be healthy. The boy’s head snapped up at him, terrified, eyes wild and scared and shocked. Something about the way he tensed indicated that he wanted to move, away from Richard, but his body didn’t want to obey. Richard raised his arms and held his palms up, signalising that he didn’t mean any harm.

“I don’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered, and put his hand back on the boy’s good shoulder. He did flinch, but his features softened and his eyes seemed less frightened. Maybe, though it wasn’t very likely, the boy remembered him, too. At least he hoped so.

“We have to get you up,” he continued, winding his arms around the boy; one under his neck and shoulders, the other across his waist. The boy groaned and hissed, but he went willingly, grinding his teeth together. He almost fell over when he put pressure on his right leg, but Richard murmured ‘I got you, I got you’ in his ear and tightened his grip.

“You’re Richard, aren’t you?” the boy suddenly said.

Richard raised his eyebrows and looked straight at him.

“Well- yeah. How do you-”

“Your accent. And miss Headey told me. The other day.”

“Oh. Alright.” Richard swallowed. An awkward pause followed.

“And what’s your name?” he asked, mostly out of politeness.

“Kit.” It came out as a whisper.

“Kit? Oh. Okay Kit, can you walk?”

“I think so,” he managed. “Just be careful with the shoulder.”

Richard nodded. They took a couple of steps just to try. Kit clung to him as he put pressure on his right leg, but at least they were able to move.

“Okay, okay, so, here’s what we’ll do. I live not far from here, only a couple of minutes to walk, so I’m taking you home with me, yeah? Get you some painkillers. Give you some ice for the bruises.” He paused. “And wash away all the blood on your face.”

Kit’s head was resting on his shoulder and he could feel him nod.

“Good. Now, come on.”

\---:---

Kit was practially shaking when they finally got home. His skin was cold, his hands colder and his teeth were shattering. It had started raining on their way - it was getting close to October, after all, so Richard’s own shoes and socks were soaked, as were his clothes. He saw Kit’s hair clinging to his skull and felt his wet jacket - he didn’t doubt that his shoes and socks were soaked, too, just like his own.

Richard took off his own jacket and hung it up, trying not to shiver at the temprature in the hallway. He reached for Kit’s jacket, and made sure to treat the left shoulder carefully when he took it off. Kit still tensed and a pained expression came over his soft features when Richard slipped the jacket off him.

“Can I ask what happened to your shoulder?” he said gently.

“My collar bone is broken,” Kit replied.

Richard opened his mouth for the automatic reply, but there came none. He had seen what they had done to him the other day, but break his collar bone? He shivered. These people were just as bad as the ones at his former school, if not worse.

The thought scared him. Maybe he shouldn’t have come here, maybe he should’ve stayed at home. He had no friends there and no one to hang out with, but at least they had let him be and didn’t hurt him physically anymore. He didn’t want to go back to the physical bullying, it was better to be alone.

He didn’t show that he was scared and shocked, though - he didn’t want to frighten Kit. It wouldn’t help him much if he realised that the guy helping him was even more scared and nervous than he was.

Just like he thought, Kit’s clothes were just as wet as his own. He let him take off the shirt by himself - it would do nothing good if he tried to help and did something that only put the wrong pressure on his collar bone. He hung up Kit’s clothes as well, and lead him into the bathroom.

In the proper light it was easier to see how much his body had actually taken. The area around his injured collar bone had a faint shade of blue and purple. Scratches were everywhere - his arms, his sides, his chest - and a couple of extra nasty cuts decorated his body - one on his chest, and two on his stomach, just above the waistband of his jeans. When he turned around, Richard spotted fresh, bleeding cuts among the old, healing ones, probably after being kicked down in the gravel.

He whimpered and couldn’t resist - he reached out, took a hold on the healthy shoulder with one hand, and traced along the cuts with the other. Kit hissed when he came in touch with the fresh ones, but otherwise he stayed still, albeit tense.

“God, you poor thing,” Richard said and winced, reaching for a cloth and moistening it before Kit could reply. He nodded toward the toilet and Kit sat down, whimpering slightly as he did so.

“Don’t ask,” he said quickly when he caught Richard’s questioning look and accepted the cloth, pressing it against his eyebrow, where his cut had split up again. Richard swallowed. He didn’t need to ask. Fucking girls and their dirty, awful tricks. He found cotton and spirit in the cupboard and covered the cotton in the liquid, only enough to make it moist, and pressed it against the fresh cuts on Kit’s body. They were small and shallow, but Kit still winced when the spirit came in contact with his them. Fortunately the cuts above his waistband looked fine - they had been sewed, Richard realised - the stings seemed to have held.

When he was done with both chest and back, he handed Kit a cup of water, found a pack of ibuprofen and a towel to dry his hair, and told him to stay put while he fetched them clean t-shirts. Kit’s chest and shoulders were broader than his, but he knew he had something that would fit. He double-timed it up the stairs, searched through the few clothes he had had the time to pack out, changed quickly and found a plain t-shirt for Kit, before rushing down the stairs again. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a soft whisper of ‘thanks’ when he handed Kit the t-shirt and the other boy pulled it over his head.

“If I had my licence I would’ve driven you home,” Richard said as they stepped out of the bathroom and he turned off the lights. “But I don’t, and I don’t think it’s a very good idea if you walked back home.”

“No, I- I think I can manage, Richard,” Kit replied hesitantly. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I’ll get home by myself, I’ll just call-”

“-no,” Richard interrupted, surprising them both. He hesitated a second before he went on. “I mean, you can stay. It’s fine, I don’t mind. Come.”

Richard reached for Kit’s hand, dragging him through the house to his bedroom, mumbling “please ignore all the mess” on the way. The whole house was filled with unpacked boxes, but it was nothing compared to Richard’s own room. There were boxes everywhere, and clothes and books were thrown over every surface. It was like a labyrinth to get from the door to the bed, which, surprisingly, seemed to have been left alone.

“We just moved in, you know,” Richard explained. “Haven’t had the time to pack it all out yet.”

“Really, Richard, don’t worry about it. This is… I don’t know how to put it. Just, uh, thank you. For letting me stay.” Kit looked up at Richard, the corners of his mouth tilting upward for a moment.

“You’re welcome,” Richard replied, squeezing his hand, only now realising he had been holding on to it longer than strictly necessary. He let go and sat down on the bed, pulling his socks off. Kit started working on his belt.

“I can keep the shirt, right?” Kit asked as Richard kicked off his jeans and curled up under the comforter. Richard nodded, “yes, sure”, and made room for him, scooching closer to the wall and pulling the comforter back slightly. Kit stepped out of his trousers and crawled up after him, careful not to put pressure on his left arm. There was just enough room for them both to lay down comfortably, but once he laid down, Kit realised what a weird and slightly awkward situation they had put themselves in.

“Are you _sure_ that you want me to stay here? I mean, isn’t this a little weird for you?”

“It’s _very_ weird!” Richard said with a laugh, turning toward Kit with a spark in his eyes. When he caught Kit’s insecure, worried eyes, however, his expression changed and the laugh turned into a soft smile. “But I don’t mind. Stay as long as you like. I just don’t want you to get hurt. _Again_.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks, I guess.”

“Has this been going on for long?”

“Not particularly. Only since mid August, when we started school again. But the last two weeks have been the worst. They weren’t so bad in the beginning.”

“Do you know why? Why they beat you?”

Kit shook his head. “Haven’t got a clue.”

“Look, Kit, listen... It will stop.” His words made Kit snap and catch his eye. “We’ll make it stop. We’ll think of something.”

“And what do you think that will be?”

“I’m not sure yet, but there has to be _something_.”

“Richard. Please, let it go, and don’t think or say more of it.”

“But Kit-”

“No. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Kit turned over on his right side, back against the wall and facing away from Richard. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Richard whispered back.

For a couple of minutes he just lay like that, watching Kit’s back, debating whether to urge the subject on or not. Twice he was close to reaching out and touch Kit’s shoulder, or scooch nearer to wrap his arms around him, if only just to reassure him that he was there if he needed anyone. Eventually he fell asleep with his hand on the pillow, and to the sound of Kit’s steady breath.


	6. Chapter 6

Richard knew very well that what he had done to treat Kit’s wounds on Saturday night wasn’t professional and probably hadn’t been enough, so when the lunch break came on Monday, he went to miss Headey’s office. His heart beat wildly in his chest - stuff like this always made him nervous - but he told himself to calm down. She was there to help, that was all, and he wasn’t even the one needing it. He knocked, and stepped in when he heard a muffled ‘come in’ from the other side of the door.

“Hi, miss Headey,” he greeted her.

“Oh, hi there, Richard!” She turned away from her computer and put her hands in her lap, leaning slightly forward. “How do you like it here? Settled in yet? Made some new friends?”

New friends? That was a good questions. Kit wasn’t a friend - at least he didn’t think so - he had just helped Kit when he saw that he needed it. He wouldn’t mind it if Kit saw him as a friend, but right now, he wasn’t sure where that would be going in the future.

“Well, sort of, maybe,” he replied, not sure how to put it. “I don’t know yet.” He paused and pointed at the bench, asking silently if he could sit down. Miss Headey nodded.

“This is not about me. Or, I’m not here for me.”

He took a deep breath. Miss Headey nodded again.

“I’m here for Kit. That boy who was beaten up the day I came here.” He swore that he could see the school nurse flinch, but it was gone in a instant, so he had probably just imagined it. “I was a party on Saturday. And I found him outside, and he had been beaten again.”

He looked up, and this time he was certain that he didn’t imagine miss Headey’s reaction. She tried not to show it, but something in her eyes gave her away. She didn’t like what she was hearing, and the news pained her. It made him wonder how many times she had had him in. Then she seemed to lighten up a bit and she leaned even further forward.

“Did you see who it was?” she asked, an unmistakable urgency in her voice.

“It was a girl. It was dark - I couldn’t see properly, but I think she was blonde. Skinny. Tight clothes. And she had this necklace she picked on, silver. I don’t know what it was, maybe some sort of star, something-”

“- a pentagram?” miss Headey interrupted.

“Yes! Yes, I think that was it.”

She breathed out, in happiness, it seemed like, relief maybe, whispering something that sounded like ‘Carmen’, and looked at him with real warmth in her eyes. “Thank you, Richard,” she said.

“Uh. You’re welcome.” He hesitated, not sure if this was information the school nurse needed, but then thought the better of it. It couldn’t hurt. “She was saying something about him ruining things.”

Miss Headey raised one eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah. That was all I heard. Just that if it hadn’t been for him, but I didn’t get what. I never got around to ask him about that.”

She smiled reassuring at that. “Don’t worry, that’s fine. Just- thank you, for the information.”

He nodded. “Okay, so, I took him home, and I tried to look at his wounds, but you know, I’m not a professional, so I don’t know. I think you should probably take a look at them to make sure he’s alright.”

“Thank you,” she said again. “I most definitely will. Would you do me the favour of telling him that I’d like to see him? If you can find him, of course.”

He nodded and stood up.

“Of course, miss Headey.”

The corners of her lips tilted upward and he opened the door.

“And Richard?” she called out to him when he was about to close it.

“Yeah?”

“I do believe you have made a new friend.”

\---:---

Richard had no trouble locating Kit when the lunch break come up. It had stopped raining Sunday afternoon, and many had abandoned the cantine in favour of the last beams of sun before rain, snow and low temperatures would take hold of the weather. Kit, however, seemed to have homework to do, and Richard found him sitting alone at one of the tables, books of Science and Mathematics open in front of him.

He raised his head when Richard approached him, and a small smile crept over his lips when he recognised him.

“Didn’t expect to see you so soon?” he said, and stood up.

“Well, me neither, to be honest,” Richard replied, biting his lip. “I came to tell that miss Headey wants to see you.”

Kit furrowed his brows. “See me? Why?”

“Since you, you know, got beaten up pretty badly the other day, I figured that she might need to take a look a-”

“You _told her_?” Kit interrupted, stepping closer.

“Only so she can take a look at you!”

“Fuck it, Richard, I thought I told you to leave it.” There was a sharp edge to Kit’s voice.

“You were beaten up for, what, the third time? How could I just ignore that?”

“Actually, for starters, it’s none of your business. You don’t even know me. There’s no reason why you should do anything, and every other normal person would realise that,” Kit bit out, and turned around to grab his backpack and stuff his books under his arm.

“I just wanted to help,” Richard replied with regret in his voice. _Because I know what it feels like._

“Well, I don’t want it.”

Kit pushed past him, shrugging off the hand Richard reached out to grab his arm.

“No, Kit, wait. I’m sor-” he started, but broke it off. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. _Fuck_ , he thought. _Great job. Messing up something good before it’s even started._

\---:---

“You wanted to see me?” Kit said when miss Headey opened the door.

“Yes, come on in.”

Kit placed his backpack and books in the corner, took off his shirt and jumped up on the bench. Standard procedure, he was getting quite used to it now.

Miss Headey checked his eyebrow, a couple of the new cuts on his chest and felt up both his collar bone and his knee.

“Seems like you were lucky this time,” she said when she was done. Kit reached for his shirt again.

“Or I’ve just learned to take it,” he replied sarcastically.

Miss Headey didn’t find it funny.

“Anything bothering you, apart from the obvious?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, there is.” He was pissed now, and he couldn’t bring himself to care if he came off as rude. “I’m sick of being treated like this. Like I can’t fix stuff myself. Like I need someone to rescue me from everything and nothing and whatnot that might be bad. I may not be able to fight off two guys holding me down, but for God’s sake, I don’t need everyone to stick their noses into my life.”

“Are you talking about Richard?”

“Of course I’m fucking talking about Richard! I told him specifically not to do anything about this.”

“Kit, he just wanted to help you.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said! But when did it become his business? He doesn’t even know me. And what if I don’t want it? What if I don’t think it’s so fun to feel incapable and vulnerable? Because that’s exactly what this whole thing does to me, and it’s bad enough that the bullies make me feel like some worthless piece of shit. They aren’t gonna stop anyway, and I don’t want random, unknown people to make an effort when there’s no point. And speaking of! Why are you helping me? This isn’t your problem, and you don’t know me either.”

“It is my problem if you’re gonna turn up here twice a week, each time more bloody than the last! _I’m_ the one who has to patch you back up!” Lena stopped herself, realising that she had raised her voice remarkably. She took a deep breath to calm herself down and continued softly. “I’m sorry, that was unprofessional.”

Kit was too worked up to take it in. “I want to know why you’re helping me.”

“I can’t tell you, it’s not appropriate.”

“I have a right to know.”

“Do you?”

“Well, maybe I don’t. But it concerns me. In a way.”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“I shouldn’t.”

Kit opened his mouth to protest again, but she silenced him with a look. “But I will. Just- hear me out, please.”

Lena took another deep breath and sat down.

“I left home for the first time when I went to London to study. I had the time of my life, made some great friends, fantastic student environment, fabulous professors, everything. Moving out went as smoothly as possible. I didn’t notice that time passed before December and Christmas came, and I came home for the first time since I’d left. The same year, my younger brother started his first year at high school. We were pretty close, but because we were so busy and didn’t live together anymore, we sort of lost contact. We didn’t talk on the phone, for example. But when I came home for Christmas, I noticed that he had changed. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he was quiet, introverted, didn’t talk and laugh and smiled nearly as much as he had when I lived home. I asked him if there was anything wrong, but he told me it was just the stress of high school wearing him down. Nothing more. Stupid as I was, I believed him and didn’t think more of it. I had, after all, gone through high school myself and knew how it could be like in the beginning.”

She stopped for a moment to breathe and calm her nerves.

“I went back to London and my studies, and I quickly forgot about my family back home. It wasn’t that we lost touch completely, but we didn’t speak very often and I was actually quite happy with that. I had my own life, my own home. God, when I think back-” She had to stop again to bite back a sob.

“Anyway. After a couple of months I got a phone call from my mother. She- uh, didn’t exactly have good news. Half broken she told me that my brother had committed suicide. She didn’t say how or why, at least she didn’t get that far. I just hung up and sat for hours staring at the wall. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe, I just sat like that until I fell asleep, I guess. For days I walked around like I was in a dream and couldn’t wake up. After about a week I started to take in what had happened, and went home to be with my family at the funeral. That was when my mother showed me the suicide note, where he had written everything about the physical and mental bullying he’d been subject to at school, down to the last detail. Everything was new to me, and I felt worse and worse the more I read. But when I got to the part where he’d written that he was homosexual and that was the reason why they beat him up, the only thing I could feel was anger. Toward the bullies, toward the school, toward my parents, but most of all myself, because I hadn’t been there for him and supported him.”

She wiped a finger quickly under both her eyes. Kit just looked at her, with blank expression on his face.

“You don’t have to say anything, Kit. You’re right - your problems aren’t really my business, but I can’t help but feel a certain amount of liability. What my brother suffered has never left me, and I’m never gonna forgive myself for not being there for him and help him. It’s a long shot, I know. But I would never forgive myself if something like that were to happen again, and I had had the chance and power to prevent it.”

Kit swallowed and nodded. “I… I think I get it.”

She gave him a quick smile. “Well, you’re free to go now. Please don’t go too hard on Richard. Thanks to him, I believe we finally have enough on Carmen to prove that she’s behind the beatings you’ve suffered the past couple of weeks.”

“Really?” Kit sat up and raised his brows.

“Really. I can’t promise anything, but if this isn’t enough, then I don’t know what it takes. But she’s going down, and she’s going down today.”

Kit had to smile at her choice of words. “You’re really determined to get her, aren’t you?”

“Damn right I am. Now, off you go, you’ve got lessons, and I’ve got a job to do.”

Kit jumped off the bench. “I’m sorry about your brother, miss Headey,” he said, before he picked up his backpack and books.

“Thank you, Kit. I appreciate that.”

He gave her a quick nod, and closed the door behind him.

\---:---

Richard was in the middle of an English lesson after lunch when miss Headey came to fetch him.

“I hope you don’t mind, Nikolaj,” she said to Mr Coster-Waldau, but he brushed her off and told her not to worry about it. Then she whisked Richard off to her office, explaining quickly that he needed to confront Carmen about what he’d heard and seen, and she would take it from there.

Carmen was already seated when they came in the door, arms crossed over her chest and not a very happy look on her pretty face.

“You are wasting your time, Lena,” she said.

“That’s _miss Headey_ to you, Carmen. And I actually don’t think that I am,” miss Headey replied, sounding more confident than ever. Richard wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Miss Headey took a seat and signalised for Richard to do the same. Just being in the same room as Carmen made him feel uneasy. It wasn’t just the look of her and the confidence she radiated - knowing what she was capable of sent chills down his spine. And Kit was more well-built than he was himself. He wouldn’t be surprised if she started to pick on him instead, now that the thing with Kit would be over.

“How can you be so sure?” Carmen shot back at miss Headey.

“Because young Mr Madden here has something on you.”

Carmen turned to him and glared. “You.” It wasn’t even a question.

“Yeah.”

“You came her to defend your boyfriend? How cute.”

“He is not my boyfriend.”

“Really? Could’ve fooled me.” She rolled her eyes. “What could you possibly have on me?” she continued, and leant forward to looked him straight in the eye.

“I saw you. On Saturday.”

“Yeah, right. I bet you were as drunk as any of them. One can’t rely on that,” Carmen said with a sarcastic laugh.

Suddenly Richard felt pissed. Kit might have been right when he said that this was none of his business, but that bitch of a girl had just made it one. He sat up and glared right back.

“Listen to me, you selfish, disgusting whore. I wasn’t drunk. I was there for only a couple of minutes, before I decided to leave. When I came out the door, I saw you. And I didn’t only see you, I heard you, and I saw you beat and kick him while he was lying down. I know it was you. I recognise your voice, your eyes, your necklace, even.”

His words made Carmen grab the pentagram around her neck. She didn’t seem just as confident any longer.

“And I don’t care what the hell he did to you, but you’ve made him suffer enough. Let it go, and leave him be.”

Carmen was quiet for a moment before she replied. “What did you hear?”

“Enough. Enough to know that you probably have your reasons, but whatever that is, this has gone too far, and it needs to stop. Right now.”

The girl had gone silent.

“Carmen?” miss Headey prompted.

“Get him out of here. I’ll tell you all you want to hear, but I don’t want him to know.” Carmen’s gaze shifted from Richard to miss Headey. “Please.”

Miss Headey sighed. “Richard, would you mind-?”

“As long as she makes up for it,” he replied, before he got up and left the room.

\---:---

Lena stared at Carmen. They were alone now; she didn’t longer care if she challenged the girl or if the girl challenged back - she just wanted the truth. They both knew this was over, there was no need to be subtle.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked simply. “What has that boy ever done to hurt you?”

Carmen pursed her unnatural red lips and picked at one fingernail. She was leaning back in her chair, and for a while it didn’t seem that she was going to reply. Then she leaned forward over the table, crossing her arms underneath her.

“He ruined everything for me.” She hesitated. “I thought I should ruin something for him.”

Now that was certainly interesting. Lena had thought that ‘bad shit’ had meant having a romantic relation to someone of the same sex when she talked to Carl Brandon last week. Obviously not. She leaned forward and looked sceptically at the girl.

“Ruin everything, you say? What exactly did he ruin?”

Anger flared across the girl’s dark eyes when she replied.

“He took everything, everything I had. He stole boyfriend - my best friend - my rock in life - and now I have no one.” An angry sob forced itself through her mouth as she talked. She stopped, took a deep breath and continued.

“I don’t have - or I didn’t have - anyone except my boyfriend. I may only be seventeen, and he was three years older, but we had been together for two years and I loved him. My brothers always picked on me, my mother didn’t care, and she still doesn’t. My dad doesn’t even count, the only thing he cares for in life is his booze. My boyfriend couldn’t do much, but he made my brothers stop and for the first time in my life, I felt loved.

“Until this summer. When we just randomly popped into that brat at a party. We’re in the same class so I knew him somewhat, and I also knew that he didn’t have many friends and all that, so when my boyfriend wanted to talk to him, I let him. I suppose he has a thing for the broken, beaten and unloved.”

She took a pause and looked at Lena. Sympathy and pity was starting to colour the school nurse’s features.

“I am sorry about your current family situation, if- if I’d known, I never would’ve-”

Carmen raised a hand and flipped her off. “Don’t fucking bother.”

Lena nodded. “Please, continue.”

Carmen ran her hand through her hair.

“My boyfriend talked to Kit all night. I had left them alone, I wanted to dance and drink and talk shit with random people I didn’t know. At one point, when it started to get really late, I felt tired and wanted to go home. I went to find them. They were still just talking, but something in my boyfriend’s eyes made me uneasy.

“After that, he became very distant. Well, not just like that, but it started with not picking up calls once in a while, and over several weeks it developed to cancelling dates and not be available when he used to be. He was always busy. He made lame excuses. I told him about something my mum had done - which I always did - and he didn’t care, didn’t try to comfort me.

“Then, one night, I had thought that it might be a good idea to drop by at his place, since we hadn’t seen each other that much. I always walked right in - he had his own place, you know, and I heard sounds behind that wall where he had his kitchen area, and he was there, and Kit was there, and-”

Carmen had to stop then. Lena waited patiently as she got up, blew her nose and sat down again. She took a deep breath and dried the skin below her eyes.

“They were only kissing, but it was still enough for me. I was out of the place faster than I came in. I don’t even think that they noticed me.

“A couple of days later my boyfriend called me, and we met in a park, and I told him what I had seen. I begged him to tell me it was just screwing around, a drunken moment - anything. I wasn’t pissed, I just wanted him to still love me and stay with me. But he looked at me with these puppy dog eyes and whispered that he was sorry. I locked myself in my room and cried for a week. Not long after, I heard that they had split up.

“At first I didn’t feel anything. Then I felt disappointment, anger, hate. I wanted to kill everyone, hurt everyone - I was desperate. He - Kit, I mean - had ruined everything, and his life was so perfect. He might not have lots of friends and not be the coolest kid at school, but neither was I. And he had parents who loved him. No one beat him. No one kicked him down in the dirt when he was already down. I wanted him to know what that felt like. And I know how to wink at stupid boys to get them to do stuff for me.”

Carmen gave Lena a sad smile and said no more. Lena reached out and squeezed her hand.

“Thank you,” she whispered. There was nothing else to say, really. An attempt to help the girl with her problems would just be taken the wrong way. The same reaction would come if she started asking more about how she felt, how all the terrible things in her family had happened. That wasn’t why the girl was there. She was there to explain, that was all.

Carmen gave her another smile and nodded.

“Just one thing I would like you to tell me.” Lena paused, and waited for permission. Carmen nodded again.

“Who’s your boyfriend? Or was, to be precise.”

Carmen’s shoulders tensed for a second, before she replied.

“His name was Jack.”

“And do I have your permission to tell Kit what you just told me?”

“No,” Carmen replied instantly. Then her features softened, and this time, her smile was real. “I will tell him myself.”

Lena couldn’t help but smile back at her words. It seemed that the whole case was put to an end, at last. She felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders at the thought. She had reached through.

“I hope you know that we still have to punish you for this,” she replied, not feeling too good about bringing it up now.

Carmen just nodded.

“I’m gonna talk to Mr Bean, but I can’t promise anything. I would guess that you’ll get at least a week, possibly more, but we’ll see.”

Carmen nodded again. “I understand.”

Lena hesitated before she spoke again. “And I do think that Kit deserves an apology. This is not something I can force on you, though. It has to come from you.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

Lena looked at her, relieved that everything, finally, seemed to fall into place. “If you ever feel like talking about anything, your home, your family, anything - or want me to help you with something - don’t hesitate to drop by.”

The corners of Carmen’s lips tilted slightly upward.

“Thank you, miss Headey.”

\---:---

That afternoon, Lena had the feeling she only got twice a year, if she was lucky. It was the feeling of having done something particularly right, something that meant something more to a student. Not only in the I-patched-up-your-papercut way, but that she had provided more. Today she hadn’t only solved things for one student, she had, hopefully, helped another on the way. And she hoped that Carmen would drop by later. She couldn’t force herself into the girl’s life and fix things, but she could leave the door ajar and let Carmen open it herself.

Lena finished sorted out the day’s paperwork and turned her computer off, before grabbing her handbag, keys and jacket. As she locked the door to her office and stuffed her keys into the bag, she heard soft voices around the corner. It sounded suspiciously like someone she knew.

“... sorry... shouldn’t have... should’ve known...”

“... didn’t... I’m... he had a girlfriend...”

“... alright... a little...”

“... didn’t know... hey... look...”

Then a unison “I’m sorry”.

As Lena passed the corner, she tried her best not to look to the side. But when she reached the door and pushed it open, she couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder. A small smile spread across her lips. There, almost hidden by the shadows, Kit had his right arm around Carmen’s shoulders, hugging her tightly as she clung to him. The left one - the one with the broken collar bone - was resting on her hip.

Lena walked through the door and shut it carefully behind her. Her smile widened. Yes. She had definitely done something right.


	7. Chapter 7

It was Monday afternoon, and Richard had finally started unpacking the countless of boxes that were currently occupying his room. Clothes here, CDs there, films, books, magazines... How was it possible to have so many _things_? It hadn’t seemed so much when it was stationed in his old room. It hadn’t seemed so much when he packed it down, either. But now, it wouldn’t end.

He had just opened one of the boxes that only contained DVDs when the doorbell sounded. He jumped, cursed himself and tumbled down the stairs. Through the blurry window he could spot a pale figure with a mop of dark hair. He opened the door and was met with Kit on his doorstep, looking sort of nervous and out of place. The boy flinched and Richard realised that he probably looked like a pissed off old man who’d got his afternoon sleep disturbed. His features softened.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Kit replied.

Silence.

Richard shifted where he stood and Kit looked away. What was he supposed to do? Let him in? He didn’t look like he wanted to come in. Then Kit spoke again.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.” He hesitated. “You know, for snapping at you. I didn’t mean to, but I was angry with myself and the whole situation, and I let it out on you. I shouldn’t have. You didn’t deserve that after what you did for me on Saturday. I understand that you just wanted to help me, and I’m grateful for that.”

Richard just stared in disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something, but realised that he had no idea how to respond. 

“And, uh... Carmen? What about her?” he finally managed to stutter.

“She won’t be a problem anymore.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Kit nodded and made a gesture with his hand, pointing behind him.

“I’m just gonna-”

“-no,” Richard interrupted. Then, out of nowhere, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Kit. It seemed to startle him, because he tensed and moved like he was about to pull away. Then his body relaxed and Richard felt one arm around his back.

“I-” Kit began. “I can’t move the other one properly yet.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Richard replied instantly, and tangled one hand into Kit’s soft, dark curls. “Don’t worry about it,” he repeated, resting his forehead against Kit’s. “Thank you. And I don’t blame you. I understand that you reacted like you did. Don’t feel bad about it.”

He had no idea how long they stood like that, but when he eventually pulled back, he was warm all over. He smiled, and Kit smiled back, albeit still a little insecure. Warmth spread in his body now that Kit’s words started to sink in. He had done something to help a kid who all but waited for someone to save him. Just like he had dreamed of at his old school - just that now their roles had been switched.

He pulled Kit close again, briefly this time, and dragged him inside the door. Miss Headey was right, he had a friend, just like she had told him. A real friend, for the first time in years. Maybe moving here wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe it could turn into something pretty good, if they were lucky. They probably hadn’t gotten the most ideal start, but that didn’t matter. In a way, Richard was happy that they’d gotten to know each other this way. They probably wouldn’t have met if the guys hadn’t beaten Kit up the day he had arrived at school for the first time.

“I’ve got the first two ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies,” he half said, half asked - remembering the box he had just unpacked - as he closed the door behind them.

That moment, when Kit’s lips spread into a wide grin and his eyes sparkled with joy, he knew that he might actually have found the one person in the world that he would do anything for.


End file.
